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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25213288">A Lawyer and a Pianist Walk Into a Bar</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZenyZootSuit/pseuds/ZenyZootSuit'>ZenyZootSuit</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hyena (TV 2020), SBS Hyena, 반의 반 | A Piece of Your Mind (TV), 하이에나</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Breakups, Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Healthy main pairing, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Not Between Main Pairing, Off-screen dubcon, Romance, Roommates, Self-Indulgent, The Author Regrets Nothing, Unhealthy Background Relationships, vague timelines</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 11:34:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>39,420</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25213288</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZenyZootSuit/pseuds/ZenyZootSuit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The unlikeliest of partners meet in the unlikeliest of places</p><p>Or the one where everyone in these two shows act like adults and see other people.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kang In-wook/Yoon Hee-jae</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Fate</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raiya/gifts">Raiya</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Ok Imma be honest with y'all: if you are a Geum-ja or a Jisoo fan, this is not the fic for you. As I see it, Geumja uses her shitty upbringing as an excuse to regularly use and manipulate other people (and as someone who also not had an easy time of it and somehow manages to get by without throwing people under the bus, I find justification of this to be extremely offensive) and Jisoo strung someone along she didn't love for a number of years, took her own guilt on the closest available target (her husband), and carried on an emotional affair while married. I don't like either of them, so I wrote this to fix it for In-wook and Hee-jae. </p><p>For Raiya &lt;3 Thank you for watching these with me, loving and hating everything same as I did, and talking about these with me!! This would never have been written without our conversations</p><p>Also, the timeline is purposefully vague. I tried so hard to figure out the length of time passing between events in hyena and tried to fit that with what I needed to happen here, and eventually gave up so...just ignore that bit :3</p><p>I hope you enjoy it!!! &lt;33</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>*******</p>
<p>The first time Kang In-wook laid eyes on Yoon Hee-jae, he didn’t pay a lick of attention to him.</p>
<p>In-wook’s head was buzzing unpleasantly as he stumbled into the little restaurant and neighborhood bar in a daze.</p>
<p>
  <em>There has been something paining me since I was a boy. Would you be angry if I told it to you?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>It depends.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I don’t know if I want to tell you.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Tell me anyway. I’m in a good mood.</em>
</p>
<p>His eyes stung with even more unshed tears. On the walk here (he had walked God knows how far, his wife had taken the car) it was as if he had swallowed the entire Yellow Sea and was intent on crying it out, his worst fear having come to pass.</p>
<p>
  <em>This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.</em>
</p>
<p>She had cried where they sat (supposed to be celebrating the first major break in In-wook’s career).</p>
<p>
  <em>Two pairs of boots, they were meant for us...</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>An accident. She had been headed to the school anyway, defying the shelter in place order. Her death was an accident and maybe I made it worse by panicking when she spoke to me in Korean but please just tell me it’s not my fault. Logically I know it’s not but it’s been eating me alive for fifteen years.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>You killed her. You killed Ha won’s mother.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Ha won...</em>
</p>
<p>“In-wook shi!”</p>
<p>The pianist jolted, head swimming nauseatingly.</p>
<p>“Are you all right?” The bartender, a longtime acquaintance, stood in front of him, a worried look on his face.</p>
<p>
  <em>How could you.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>It was an accident! I—</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>You hated him. You have always hated him.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>You think...you think I intentionally led her into a storm because I hated her son?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I don’t know what to think.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>How could you...</em>
</p>
<p>“No,” he whispered, staring down at his hands.</p>
<p>“What happened? I’ve never seen you this upset.”</p>
<p>In-wook trembled. “My wife and I...we fought…”</p>
<p>“Bad?”</p>
<p>He nodded.</p>
<p>The bartender sighed. “Well, you came to the right place.”</p>
<p>A bottle of soju was placed in front of him (all the soju in Korea would not be enough to drown his sorrows).</p>
<p>
  <em>Forgive me please.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>No.</em>
</p>
<p>“The f...fuck happened to you?”</p>
<p>In-wook slowly turned his head to the sound of a badly slurred voice. It was only then that he noticed the unfortunate pile of human slumped against the counter a few stools down. A man he had never seen here before (and increasingly, In-wook spent a lot of time here), and by his expensive-looking attire alone, not the kind of man who would have moved into a simple neighborhood such as this.</p>
<p>That said, he was an utter mess. His clothing rumpled, hair mussed, head pillowed on his folded arms on top of the bar and his face stained with tears.</p>
<p>He appeared to have been crying every bit as much as In-wook.</p>
<p>The pianist turned away from him. He had neither the time nor the patience for drunken chatter. Whatever had upset this man, In-wook had enough problems of his own.</p>
<p>The pianist took hold of his bottle, his wedding ring clinking against the glass and for the first time in his married life, In-wook wanted to rip it off and throw it as far as he could. He immediately grimaced at the thought, ducking his head. Normally he only ever took it off to clean and polish it, and to make sure it wasn’t getting too big or too small. It was his treasure, as was the person who had given it to him, and to take it off was unthinkable.</p>
<p>
  <em>Forgive me please...</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>No!</em>
</p>
<p>“I a-asked...what happened to you?”</p>
<p>Briefly knocked out of his misery again, In-wook glanced at the man. He was still looking at him, eyes brimming with tears this time.</p>
<p>“Wanna...know what happened to me?”</p>
<p>“No,” In-wook said cooly. “I don’t.”</p>
<p>The man didn’t appear to have heard him or perhaps, engrossed in his own misery, didn’t care.</p>
<p>(In-wook should have gone straight to the studio where he was planning on sleeping and pounded out his feelings on the keys until he was tired enough to sleep, but he couldn’t bear to look at his beloved instrument because all of the songs he had been composing as of late were inspired by his wife. His wife, who now despised him.)</p>
<p>“My girlfriend humiliated me...in court...we’re both lawyers... <em>Apparently</em> we’re both lawyers!” he hiccuped. “But I guess...I guess she’s not my girlfriend anymore is she…”</p>
<p>In-wook cracked open the bottle of soju and downed half of it in one go. </p>
<p>“S-she...she lied to me...”</p>
<p>In-wook made an annoyed sound. “Can’t a man drown his sorrows in peace?”</p>
<p>“I loved her. She was perfect.”</p>
<p>The pianist rolled his eyes. “Apparently not that perfect.”</p>
<p>“The whole thing was a ruse. Everything. Every kiss... touch... moment... She let me believe she loved me...I loved her... but it w-was all fake. She…she was my rival in a high profile case…only wanted...<em> to steal</em> <em>information from me</em>….”</p>
<p>In-wook glanced back at him then.</p>
<p>Damn.</p>
<p>It never ceased to amaze him how terrible people could be.</p>
<p>The man sniffled. “I’m gonna lose my fucking job over it if my boss finds out... might even...<em>disbar me</em>…”</p>
<p>The pianist looked back to his own drink and not for the first time wondered if he too could be punished for what he had said fifteen years ago.</p>
<p>“Cheers,” he muttered, downing the rest of his drink and ordering another as the other man slumped further into his seat beside him, tears finally spilling over and staining the expensive fabric of his jacket.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>When In-wook awoke the next day on the studio couch—</p>
<p>(He needed to remember to buy the amateur sound engineer, Han Seo-woo, coffee in apology for scaring the shit out of her when he stumbled in drunk off his ass at two in the morning while she worked late, and also in gratitude for letting him sleep on the couch after accepting his fervent promises that he wouldn’t touch anything.</p>
<p>“Let me call a cab to take you home—“</p>
<p>“No! No, not home...”)</p>
<p>— he both looked and felt like he had been in a fistfight and lost. He cleaned himself up as best he could in the bathroom and set about playing away his sorrows, only to realize his eyes were too blurry to even read the notes on the page.</p>
<p>His manager pushed him to explain what was wrong.</p>
<p>
  <em>What was wrong? Where did he even start, his whole life had been turned on its end!</em>
</p>
<p>When he refused to say, he was kicked out and told to go home and get some rest. He wandered the city aimlessly until the bar opened instead.</p>
<p>The man in the suit was there when he arrived, already several drinks in if the bartender’s exasperated face was anything to go by.</p>
<p>“I’m cutting you off after a bottle, fair warning,” he said as the man proceeded to try and drink his entire bottle of imported whiskey. If In-wook had money, he might have done the same. “I refuse to scrape you off the floor again like I did last night.”</p>
<p>The man scoffed, already sounding drunk (had he even sobered up from the night before?) “I can hold my liquor.”</p>
<p>“No one can hold that much.”</p>
<p>In-wook drank his soju in silence, tuning out the man’s increasingly upset whispers of<em> why, why, how could she? </em>as the bartender nodded sympathetically.</p>
<p><em>Why?</em> In-wook wondered. <em>Why would she not even hear me out?</em></p>
<p>
  <em>She blamed me...</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>How could she?</em>
</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>Eventually In-wook had to go home (it no longer felt like home) to get fresh clothes and take a shower. A simple conversation with his wife about what had happened turned into a screaming match (his fault, he would admit. After days of sleeping on studio couches for no more than a few minutes here and there, barely eating, and drinking himself into a stupor nightly, his temper was short) and led to Jisoo locking herself in her room and refusing to come out, even as he stood on the other side, sobbing openly and begging her to.</p>
<p>Married for nearly a decade and they had never fought like this before.</p>
<p>Walking down the street at 11 o’clock at night (another night on the studio couch it was), In-wook could have kicked himself. Why did he have to bring he have to bring up the elephant in the room? Why did <em>she</em> have to?</p>
<p>
  <em>“I want to apologize to him.”</em>
</p>
<p><em>“Why? Why are </em>you<em> apologizing for anything? Besides, you’ve not spoken to him in years, don’t you think such an announcement would only make this worse by clawing at old wounds?”</em></p>
<p>
  <em>She had stared at the floor, refusing to look at him, and In-wook had shivered so badly he nearly tipped over.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Or…or have you spoken to him? Have you been, all this time?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“How dare you!”</em>
</p>
<p>And just like that, a decade of repressed insecurity and jealousy exploded and the fight of a simple misspoken, blurted-out sentence turned into another thing entirely.</p>
<p>And In-wook ended up back at the bar.</p>
<p>The man was already there again, though this time he wasn’t drunk yet.</p>
<p>“You look like hell.”</p>
<p>In-wook ignored him.</p>
<p>“Yoon Hee-jae.”</p>
<p>The pianist glanced over.</p>
<p>The man was holding out a hand tiredly. “If we’re going to keep running into each other like this, we might as well introduce ourselves.</p>
<p>In-wook ignored the hand and the question. “What is a man dressed like you doing in a place like this?”</p>
<p>The bartender threw an offended look over his shoulder.</p>
<p>The man —Hee-jae— scoffed. “I certainly won’t run into anyone I know down here.”</p>
<p>Fair enough.</p>
<p>The man waited expectantly. In-wook just stared at him.</p>
<p>“Well?” the man asked. “Your name?”</p>
<p>Resigned to the fact that the bastard would never let him drink in peace if he didn’t, the pianist answered “In-wook” in a clipped tone, purposefully omitting his family name to avoid being—</p>
<p>“Like the classical pianist? I thought that was you.”</p>
<p>—recognized.</p>
<p>The pianist made a noncommittal sound, turning away from him.</p>
<p>“You know,” the man said in that obnoxiously arrogant tone of his. “You never did mention what it was that’s had you drinking in here every day for the past week.”</p>
<p>“Perhaps that’s because,” In-wook growled. “I don’t discuss my personal problems with complete strangers.”</p>
<p>“Come now,” the man chattered. “It’s good to blow off a little steam.”</p>
<p>“Perhaps if you had blown off a little less, you wouldn’t currently be at risk of being disbarred.” In-wook didn’t have to look at him to see he had touched a nerve.</p>
<p>“Ho ho,” the man murmured in return, equal parts miffed and seemingly impressed. “You missed your calling as a lawyer, throwing out hits like that.”</p>
<p>They drank in silence for the rest of the evening.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>In-wook sighed heavily as he entered the bar later that week (after days upon days of utter silence from his wife, which was somehow worse than tears) to see Yoon Hee-jae already seated at the bar, as he normally was.</p>
<p>“Can I ever drink in peace?” he grumbled to himself as the bartender set his customary bottle of soju down in front of him.</p>
<p>“You could always go to a different bar.”</p>
<p>In-wook shot him a look. <em>Obviously</em>. “I like this bar.”</p>
<p>Which was part of the truth. The rest of the truth was that Yoon Hee-jae, as much as he aggravated the pianist with his constant drunken ramblings about his now ex-girlfriend, intrigued him. His incredible dry sense of humor was, quite frankly, phenomenal and one did not become a lawyer by being dimwitted. When he wasn’t three sheets to the wind, In-wook couldn’t say he minded the man’s company</p>
<p>Also, In-wook was becoming rather worried about him. He didn’t seem to have anyone else to talk to (In-wook could relate), drank entirely too much (In-wook often felt sick just watching him drink as much as he did) and had begun to talk quite darkly about his life and career, though In-wook couldn’t say exactly what it was Hee-jae had said to make him ask the bartender for a scrap of paper, write his number down on it, and give it to him, but some part of him felt it was necessary.</p>
<p>The lawyer with the black circles under his eyes looked tiredly between the paper in his hand and the pianist in front of him.</p>
<p>In-wook sighed sharply, suddenly very annoyed. “Just call me if you need anything, all right?” he hissed, grabbing his bag and stalking out the door. He still had yet to mention his own problems.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>Jisoo hadn’t spoken to him in weeks. In-wook didn’t even want to go home anymore because he couldn’t stand the atmosphere. It was suffocating, the feeling of despair that permeated the apartment, but every now and again he had to.</p>
<p>His wife was ‘sleeping’ on the couch when he got home, which was odd. Normally she was already in bed when he got back. Normally she never even left the bed.</p>
<p>
  <em>He had tried, just last week, to talk to her again. He had sat by the bed and reached for her hand, but she pulled away. He sat there with her while she cried, shoving his own sadness down so much it nearly choked him. He had apologized for his short temper and role in their blowout fight and asked her, begged her, to talk. To try again to work this out.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“We’ve been together for 15 years, there has to be a way to work this out…”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Eventually she had nodded and agreed to try again. He made them both tea and they sat at the table, silent for a long time.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“What can I do,” In-wook finally said. “To make this right?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“You could apologize.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He blinked. “Apologize?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“To Ha-won.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“For what?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“For killing his mother.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>In-wook shivered. “I didn’t…kill his mother.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“You said you—“</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“I said I ran into a woman during a snowstorm and she spoke to me in a language I wasn’t comfortable using—“</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“You mean the one we’re using right now?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Yes, the one we’re using right now, though let me remind you how central you were to me learning to speak said language, or do you not remember teaching me to read and correcting my grammar?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Your mother spoke it to you! How could you mess up such a simple sentence?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“I panicked! I panicked and I made a mistake. I don’t know why I said it like that! But she was going to the school anyway…”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“If that’s really what you believe then why did you tell me?” she cried. “Why did you uproot our entire lives if you’re not even sorry!”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Because I can’t stop thinking about what might have happened if I hadn’t said it, if it was fated to end that way or if my terrible Korean tipped the scales…”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Jisoo shook her head.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>In-wook had been trying so hard not to cry, but tears filled his eyes then. “I went after her! I tried to stop her! She couldn’t hear me…”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“How could you, how could you do this to Ha-won—“</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“HA-WON!” In-wook had shouted it before he could stop himself.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Jisoo jumped at his raised voice.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Why are you doing this?” In-wook was visibly shaking by then. “If I had come to you and said this happened to my friend when he was fucking fifteen, would you say the same thing? Would you condemn him, blame him, hate him so? If I had come to you and said this happened with any other person, would you be so upset? Would you call me a murderer then?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Jisoo was crying openly.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Or is it just…” In-wook went on. “Because it’s Ha-won?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>She shook her head miserably, burying her face in her hands. “How could you do this to him? Did you hate him so much?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Hate him…” In-wook whispered, dumbfounded. “Did you ever stop loving him?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Stop it…”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“All this time. In 15 years have you ever stopped? Of course you haven’t. I’ve never even met the bastard and I still feel his presence in everything we do.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Stop it!”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>In-wook couldn’t stand it a second long. Slamming his hands on the table, angrily he shouted, “Why did you marry me if you were still in love with him?!”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“I DON’T KNOW!”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>What could he do but sit there in utter shock as she got up from the table and fled to the bedroom, locking the door behind her. It was then and there that he realized, definitively, that his marriage was going to end.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He sobbed into his hands late into the night.</em>
  
</p>
<p>He wanted to go over to her, like he would have before this mess when she was sad, pick her up, and carry her to bed, hold her in his arms until she fell asleep. But he couldn’t do that anymore. An increasingly large part of him didn’t even want to.</p>
<p>He had just set his bag down, and was two steps towards the bathroom to shower, fall into bed, and sleep like the dead when his phone rang. An unfamiliar number. He thought to let it go, but for some reason he answered it.</p>
<p>“Hello?”</p>
<p>“Kang In-wook?” said a strained male voice, a familiar one, but he couldn’t place it.</p>
<p>The pianist frowned. “…Yes?”</p>
<p>“It’s Yoon Hee-jae.”</p>
<p>In-wook raised an eyebrow. Right, he had given the man his number in case—</p>
<p>“Look, I know it’s late…” Hee-jae mumbled, voice thick with something and it didn’t sound like alcohol. “But could you come pick me up? I…I don’t…” The misery in his voice was palpable, strong enough to overwhelm even the grief in In-wook’s heart.</p>
<p>For whatever reason, regardless of the fact the man clearly had money and could call himself a cab, In-wook found himself agreeing.</p>
<p>The address Yoon Hee-jae gave him was in the business district. The high end business district, In-wook realized with wide eyes. Hee-jae himself was dressed in a suit that probably cost more than In-wook’s apartment. Despite that, he looked an awful mess. Head and shoulders oddly damp, suit rumpled, a despondent look on his face and, when he opened the car door, he <em>reeked</em> of alcohol.</p>
<p>“Couldn’t you have called yourself a cab,” In-wook asked, a bit miffed. “If you were too drunk to drive yourself home?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae didn’t look at him as he put on his seatbelt. “I didn’t drink a drop…” he whispered, voice barely audible.</p>
<p>“What happened?”</p>
<p>The lawyer shivered. “I…I lost another client.”</p>
<p>In-wook paused for a moment, taking stock of the situation. “…Because of her?” <em>The ex-girlfriend</em>.</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“And you reek of alcohol because…?”</p>
<p>“The client dumped an entire bottle of wine on my head in front of probably a hundred people, half of them clients, and I had to sit there and take it or risk being fired. Not that it technically mattered because I was just stripped of all my cases anyway.”</p>
<p>In-wook sighed, heart somehow finding space to ache for the man despite its own wailing from his failing marriage. “Where am I taking you?”</p>
<p>“Home. I’ll tell you how to get there.”</p>
<p>It didn’t take long to get there. Honestly it probably would have been walkable, but In-wook couldn’t find it in himself to be too angry at the clearly miserable man for wanting a bit of company after what sounded like a hellacious evening.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” the man murmured when they pulled up in front of the apartment complex. After a moment, he added, “Do you…want to come up for a drink?”</p>
<p>Part of In-wook thought to say yes, not really wanting to go home, but he had left everything (including his driver’s license, he realized with a flash of anxiety) at home. Bound to go over well if he got caught driving under the influence <em>and</em> without a license.</p>
<p>“I have to get home,” he said with a brief nod of thanks for the offer.</p>
<p>Something that might have been disappointment flashed across the lawyer’s face but was gone almost as quickly as it appeared.He nodded to In-wook’s wedding ring. “Married, are you?”</p>
<p>In-wook’s eyes were drawn to the band he had worn for nine years. As was his habit, he spun it on his finger, holding that hand in his lap like a precious piece of art. </p>
<p>“Not for much longer...” he whispered, a thousand memories flashing through his mind’s eye as his soul <em>screamed.</em></p>
<p>“Need a lawyer?”</p>
<p>In-wook shot him a reproachful look before actually taking a moment to consider it. This fight had already gotten uglier than he could have ever imagined. He didn’t want any trouble, but that didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t going to get it. A shame the man in his passenger seat had likely meant that as a joke.</p>
<p>Hee-jae made a noise after a prolonged silence from In-wook. “Sure you don’t want that drink?”</p>
<p>“I’m fine, thank you.”</p>
<p>The lawyer nodded. “Well…you have my number now. Call me...if you need anything. Thank you for the ride. I’ll…see you at the bar?”</p>
<p>In-wook found himself nodding. “If you try not to be halfway under the table by the time I get there, maybe we can actually have a proper conversation.”</p>
<p>The lawyer flashed him a small, almost sheepish smile as he shut the door.</p>
<p>In-wook waited until he got inside the building before driving away.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>It was sunny out, but to In-wook everything looked <em>black</em>.</p>
<p>He had tried to work, but everything he had in progress had been written with inspiration from <em>her. </em>He tried to start something new, something to put into the open the despair that was currently swallowing him whole, but as his fingers touched the keys, his mind fogged over and he could do nothing but sit there and stare at nothing. He tried to play Beethoven, Bach, something angry, something painful, but his fingers slipped over the keys and the mistakes grated on his ears.</p>
<p>The sweet girl, Han Seo-woo, had brought him tea earlier in the day, shut the door behind her and told him the recording equipment was turned off, so he could say whatever he wanted. Or she could ‘take a phone call’ outside and he could scream as much as he wanted.</p>
<p>His face burned with embarrassment at his obvious misery, but he was too devastated to care. He nodded and she left, saying she would be back in twenty minutes and to just text her if he needed more time.</p>
<p>He didn’t play, he didn’t scream, he didn’t do anything but sit there for the first ten minutes. Then he found himself picking up his phone.</p>
<p>“Yoon Hee-jae,” a businesslike voice said on the other end of the line.</p>
<p>It took In-wook a moment to speak. <em>Why call him?</em></p>
<p>
  <em>For the same reason he called you. Neither of you has any connections to each other’s lives.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>And neither of you has anyone else to call.</em>
</p>
<p>“It’s Kang In-wook.”</p>
<p>“Oh!” The voice sounded surprised for a brief moment before it took on a more concerned note. “Is something wrong?”</p>
<p>Much to his chagrin, In-wook’s voice shook as he spoke. “If the offer of a drink is still open…I could use one.”</p>
<p>“Sure. Tonight?”</p>
<p>“Whenever.”</p>
<p>“All right. I’ll be back home in…two hours? You know where it is. Wait for me out front and I’ll let you in.”</p>
<p>Half-forgetting the man couldn’t see him, In-wook merely nodded and hung up the phone.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>The pianist could not remember what he had done with those two hours, but somehow he made it out in front of Hee-jae’s apartment complex in one piece, so he supposed it didn’t really matter. The man was missing his distinctive suit when he opened the door for him, wearing instead a simple black long sleeved shirt.</p>
<p>Upon glimpsing his reflection in the glass door, In-wook was made aware of what an utter mess he was in his rumpled jacket and shirt, his eyes swollen and red from the amount of crying he had done over the past 24 hours.</p>
<p>Hee-jae said nothing to him as they took the elevator to a seventh floor apartment and even in his misery, In-wook couldn’t help but stare at the place as Hee-jae led him inside. It was bigger than the house In-wook had lived in in Norway, and in the middle of Seoul at that. It looked exactly like a place a wealthy lawyer would live (In-wook tried not to feel jealous, tried to ignore his own newfound financial worries).</p>
<p>“Quite nice,” he murmured.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Hee-jae said, pulling glasses out of the cabinet. “What do you drink?”</p>
<p>“Whatever you’re having.”</p>
<p>That turned out to be very expensive whiskey, but he was too tired to say anything about it or express the sentiment that he needn’t use his best liquor on a sad pianist. A quick glimpse of the man’s liquor cabinet, and it was very much not his best liquor, so In-wook pushed the thought aside.</p>
<p>“Rough day?” Hee-jae asked, tone gentle, starkly different from its usual tint of arrogance.</p>
<p>In-wook nodded, staring at his glass. “My wife and I….are getting divorced.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae nodded. “You mentioned that before.”</p>
<p>“It wasn’t official until yesterday.”</p>
<p>“Ah.” Both men took a drink. “May I ask what did it?”</p>
<p>In-wook snorted, sadness giving way to a brief flash of anger. “I asked her if she loved me and she said yes.”</p>
<p>“I see— wait, what?”</p>
<p>“And then I asked her if she was <em>in</em> love with me, if she ever had been, and she said no. We’ve been together for 15 years, married for 9.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae winced. “And you were in love with her.”</p>
<p>“Of course I was, I wouldn’t have married her otherwise!” In-wook took a breath, embarrassed at the amount his voice had raised. “I’m sorry, I…”</p>
<p>“It’s all right.”</p>
<p>In-wook drained his glass in one long swallow. “That’s not even the worst of it.”</p>
<p>“Oh?” the lawyer asked as he refilled the glass.</p>
<p>“She’s been in love with somebody else this whole time…and who it is…is just a whole other story I don’t even want to get into, but it’s really terrible that it was him…”</p>
<p>“She cheated on you?”</p>
<p>“Probably. She had fucking four missed calls from him when I came home yesterday. I know I shouldn’t have snooped, but I did and I wish I hadn’t…”</p>
<p>“At least you know now.”</p>
<p>“Sure…” In-wook muttered miserably. “She’s been talking to him for I don’t even know how long even though she said she wasn’t…I don’t know if she ever met him but to be honest, I don’t even care.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae nodded, finishing his drink. “You know,” he said as he refilled their glasses. “I wasn’t kidding when I said if you need a lawyer, just ask.”</p>
<p>In-wook snorted. “I couldn’t afford you.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae tossed him a smile. “What, you’d think I would charge my favorite drinking partner what I charge the rest of the idiots I represent? Of course not.”</p>
<p>“I couldn’t possibly ask you to charge me any less just because we’ve vented to each other twice.”</p>
<p>“Me to you a lot more than you to me.” The man leaned towards him. “Tell you what, if you end up needing a lawyer, I’ll represent you for dinner and a drink. How’s that sound?”</p>
<p>Despite the black cloud hanging over him, In-wook found himself cracking a small smile. “Thank you…I don’t think it will come to that though. I told her she could blame me for everything if she would just agree to a divorce.”</p>
<p>“Why?” the lawyer asked, frowning. “If she’s the one who cheated on you—“</p>
<p>In-wook cut him off, bristling at someone speaking poorly of his wife. “There’s more to it than that. A…much more complicated issue started this…”</p>
<p>“What was it?”</p>
<p>In-wook shook his head. “I’m…miserable enough without dredging that up. In any case, I don’t want a fuss, I just want this to be over.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae made a noncommittal sound.</p>
<p>The man was very generous with his alcohol and In-wook soon found himself much too drunk to drive, not that he had anywhere to go anyway (certainly not home).</p>
<p>His words increasingly slurred, In-wook apologized profusely for the imposition, but Hee-jae waved him off.</p>
<p>“Have you eaten yet? Probably not if you’re this drunk. Do you like ramyeon? I’ll make some ramyeon.”</p>
<p>“I couldn’t—“</p>
<p>“If you don’t like ramyeon, you best speak up now because that’s what I’m making. Though if you don’t like ramyeon, I might have to kick you out. That truly would be an affront to nature…”</p>
<p>“I couldn’t possibly—“</p>
<p>Hee-jae slapped a glass of water in front of him, making him jump. “<em>Let me feed you</em>, goodness. I’ve never heard someone put up such a fuss at being fed.”</p>
<p>The man was a good cook. In-wook wished he was in more of a headspace to appreciate it, but the thought of any food turned his stomach and the sight of ramyeon especially made him miserable as he was reminded how he would never taste his wife’s again.</p>
<p>Hee-jae made no comment at his lack of appetite though and appeared to take no offense, for which In-wook was grateful.</p>
<p>“Do you have a place to stay tonight?” Hee-jae asked him as the hour grew late.</p>
<p>In-wook shrugged. “I’ve been mostly staying on studio couches. That’s where I’ll probably go.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae scoffed. “A studio couch? I don’t think so. At least stay on my couch. I’ll even feed you in the morning.”</p>
<p>In-wook shook his head. “I’ve already imposed on you enough—“</p>
<p>“Horseshit.”</p>
<p>In-wook’s mouth twitched in a smile.</p>
<p>Hee-jae smiled back. “You can shower first if you want. I’ll find you some clothes you can borrow for the night.”</p>
<p>“I—“</p>
<p>“Don’t make me lock the door and run off with the key to keep you here.”</p>
<p>In-wook swallowed, considering. “...Wouldn’t that be unlawful imprisonment?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae stared at him for a long moment, long enough that In-wook almost apologized for the bad joke when the lawyer suddenly burst out laughing.</p>
<p>“You missed your calling as an attorney, really you did,” he got out between breaths as he made his way up what was probably the bedroom, laughing the whole time.</p>
<p>How he had managed to somewhat lift the black cloud over In-wook, the pianist would never know.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>Oddly enough, In-wook’s relationship with his soon-to-be ex-wife improved as they worked through the proceedings. True to his word, In-wook didn’t put up a fight and let Jisoo have whatever she wanted. True to her character, Jisoo didn’t take advantage of that.</p>
<p>He was going to miss her.</p>
<p><em>It’s necessary, </em>he kept reminding himself as he packed his bags, trying not to cry. The divorce had been finalized earlier that day, but he still hadn’t taken off his wedding band. His hand felt terrible without it on.</p>
<p>“Will you be okay?” his wife’s…ex-wife’s voice came from the doorway.</p>
<p>“I’ll be fine,” In-wook bit out. “Besides, it’s already done.”</p>
<p>“I mean do you have anywhere to go? Some place to stay? I know…I know this was necessary, but I don’t want to see you out on the street—“</p>
<p>In-wook bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to bleed, suddenly wanting to be as far away from here as possible, to hell with where he ended up. “I’ll be fine,” he muttered, picking up the last of his bags to put in his car (he got to keep that and she kept the apartment and almost everything in it).</p>
<p>“In-wook ah…”</p>
<p>The pianist shivered at the endearment, a tear slipping down his cheek. He turned to find Jisoo standing in front of him.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry it ended like this.”</p>
<p>“Me too,” he whispered.</p>
<p>She hugged him and In-wook nearly broke down crying on the spot as he hugged her back.</p>
<p>“Please call me…if you need anything. I’d rather you call me than call no one at all.”</p>
<p>“All right,” he said with no intention of doing that.</p>
<p>“Promise?”</p>
<p>Despite himself, he promised her, and cried his eyes out the entire drive to the studio.</p>
<p>
  <em>It was necessary.</em>
  
</p>
<p>
  <em>And if she tells Ha-won now? Nothing to stop her from sending her ex-husband to jail.</em>
</p>
<p>He still hadn’t taken off his wedding ring, even though it pained him to look at it.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>It was about 10 o’clock when his phone buzzed on top of the piano. He had been working his way through Beethoven’s 5th—</p>
<p>
  <em>“You’re not going to advance your career if you don’t write your own music!”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“All my music was inspired by my wife and I just divorced her. Can you at least give me a week to nurse my broken heart?”</em>
</p>
<p><em>“No!</em>”</p>
<p>—when he heard it. It was Hee-jae.</p>
<p>“Can you meet for lunch?” The lawyer’s voice sounded harried. “I’ll pay. I just…” he trailed off, anxiety plain in his tone.</p>
<p>“Of course,” In-wook said, for whatever reason more than a little glad to hear his voice. “Text me where and when.”</p>
<p>“I’ll come to you. Where is your studio?”</p>
<p>They ended up in the same little restaurant they had originally met in, eating noodles and drinking (In-wook had needed a drink since he got up this morning).</p>
<p>Hee-jae looked every bit as harried as he had sounded on the phone. His eyes flittered about the room and his hands trembled just a little as he ate in silence, drinking his entire glass of wine entirely too quickly.</p>
<p>“Did something happen?” In-wook finally asked.</p>
<p>The lawyer nodded, looking a bit sick as he put his chopsticks down. “Did you ever get the full story about what happened with my ex or was I too drunk to get through it all?”</p>
<p>In-wook hummed. “You met the girl of your dreams at a laundromat and dated her for three months until she turned out to be from a rival firm, stole information from you and used it to beat you in court. She’s been making your life miserable since then.”</p>
<p>“Pretty much.” The lawyer picked at his noddles. “And I told you that if my boss ever found out I would be fired or even disbarred?”</p>
<p>“You did.”</p>
<p>“Well…I’ve been fighting back and forth with her since we broke up. Engaging in…a lot of things I wouldn’t normally do, that it would take the full extent of any lawyer’s skill to explain away in front of the bar association if I were caught….”</p>
<p>“Sounds a bit counterproductive.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae shot him a look.</p>
<p>In-wook shrugged. “If I’m being honest. I thought you never wanted to see her again.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae made an upset noise. “My firm just hired her. Not even as an associate, <em>as a partner.”</em></p>
<p>In-wook blinked. “Oh…When did that happen?”</p>
<p>“This morning.” He rubbed at his eyes. “I’ve just been sitting in my office all day going crazy. I can’t even get any work done. I just needed to get out and…”</p>
<p>“I understand.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae glanced up at him. “What about you? You’re not looking all that perky yourself.”</p>
<p>In-wook snorted. “How kind of you to point out.”</p>
<p>“Just tell me. Take my mind off my own impending ruin.”</p>
<p>“My wife and I finalized our divorce yesterday.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae made an interested noise. “That was fast.”</p>
<p>In-wook stared down at the table. “Like I said, I just wanted it to be over.” He purposefully ignored how Hee-jae stared at the wedding ring still on his finger.</p>
<p>“Who got the apartment?”</p>
<p>“She did.”</p>
<p>“I could have gotten that for you.”</p>
<p>In-wook shook his head and rubbed his temples. “It’s done. That’s all I care about.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae was quiet for a long moment. “Do you have someplace to stay.”</p>
<p>“I’ll find someplace,” In-wook replied sullenly.</p>
<p>Something quick passed over Hee-jae’s face. “You can stay with me if you want.” In-wook must have looked surprised because he quickly went on. “I know we haven’t known each other for very long, but if you need someplace to stay I’d be happy to have you. To be honest, I’ve been rather lonely in my apartment by myself….never liked living alone.”</p>
<p>In-wook spun his bottle of soju between his fingers. “I’ve never lived alone. I met my wife young in Norway when we still lived with our families. When we decided to move to Seoul we were already engaged and came together.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae raised an eyebrow. “Norway?”</p>
<p>In-wook nodded. “My family moved around a lot, but I lived in Norway the longest, from…I don’t know, maybe 14 to 21 when I moved here.”</p>
<p>“Huh.”</p>
<p>“Yeah…” In-wook replied with a small smile. “I actually…didn’t really speak Korean until I got engaged to my wife and we said we would come here.”</p>
<p>“Your Korean is good,” Hee-jae said, smiling back. “Could have fooled me.”</p>
<p>“I should hope so, I’ve only been here for a decade,” In-wook said, feeling something he couldn’t name loosen in his chest. “It’s technically my first language but I largely refused to speak it until I got engaged. Then I came here and found myself in a bit of a pickle as I was much more comfortable speaking Norwegian or English, but I learned fast.”</p>
<p>“Oof, English…” Hee-jae dropped his head into his hands and In-wook chuckled. “I might have to practice with you at some point, my accent is really bad.”</p>
<p>“Sure, whenever you want.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae nodded, still smiling. “So you can move in tonight. And you’re welcome to stay as long as you want.”</p>
<p>In-wook eyed him cautiously. “…I should tell you,” he began softly. “I don’t know how long it will be until I can…get back on my feet. I’m a musician who’s increasingly in a slump and musicians in slumps don’t make any money. I couldn’t even help you pay rent right now.”</p>
<p>“Well it’s not as if I’m going to turn my favorite drinking partner out on the street,” Hee-jae chided him. “And I neither need nor want your help paying rent. I don’t work at Song&amp;Kim so I can be rent burdened.”</p>
<p>“Then I would definitely be imposing on you.”</p>
<p>“Get me tickets to all of your performances and maybe a couple of other artists’ and we’ll call it a deal.” At In-wook’s stare, he shrugged. “What? I love classical music.”</p>
<p>In-wook raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae nodded. “That’s how I recognized you back when we first met.”</p>
<p>In-wook snorted. “You remember that?”</p>
<p>“Why wouldn’t I?”</p>
<p>“You drank yourself literally under the table.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae shrugged. “I’m a lawyer. It’s a necessary skill to remember what you say to colleagues when drunk.”</p>
<p>In-wook laughed. Despite the piles of shit his life had become, he laughed.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p><em>I live here now</em>, he thought as he stared around at the expansive apartment.</p>
<p>“This is it?” Hee-jae had said with a look of surprise as In-wook pulled his three boxes of clothes and one box of other things out of his car.</p>
<p>“I let her keep everything else.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae sighed heavily as he picked up two boxes. “Should have let me represent you…”</p>
<p>In-wook ignored him.</p>
<p><em>I am moving in with my…drinking buddy, </em>he thought rather dully as unpacked his things into a small set of drawers Hee-jae had dug out for him. <em>This is…what my life is now.</em></p>
<p>He spun his wedding ring on his finger and <em>missed</em> the life he had lost. But then Hee-jae fed him ramyeon and whiskey (even better whiskey this time, In-wook noted) and perhaps, the part of In-wook that wasn’t shriveling up and<em> dying</em> thought, this wouldn’t be so bad. It was better, at least, than spending the foreseeable future living out of his car and off of studio couches.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>The two of them hit it off as friends and roommates, in a matter of days falling into a routine. In-wook did not like this routine. Hee-jae wouldn’t let him do <em>anything</em>.</p>
<p>“I can clean.”</p>
<p>“Someone comes in twice a week for that.”</p>
<p>In-wook blinked. “I can cook.”</p>
<p>“But I like to cook.”</p>
<p>“Damn it, will you let me participate?”</p>
<p>“If you would let me get you a piano you could provide background music. I do so love your renditions of Mozart’s sonatas and your original album was excellent.”</p>
<p>In-wook rolled his eyes, shivering in embarrassment. He had no idea how much money his new roommate made, but it must have been <em>a lot</em> (of course it was a lot, his suits alone cost more than In-wook’s car) because he did not even blink at the idea of getting him a <em>piano.</em></p>
<p>In-wook firmly said no, that he would simply die of embarrassment, and bothered the local box office the next day until they coughed up a ticket to Hee-jae’s favorite ensemble to pacify him for a bit.</p>
<p>At his core, Hee-jae was a good man and a generous one. He was, in a lot of ways, a lot like Jisoo. And much to In-wook’s surprise, he seemed absolutely thrilled to have a house mate.</p>
<p>For example: after a long and frustrating day at the studio—</p>
<p>
  <em>“Finish your album!”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“All of those pieces were for my ex-wife, how am I supposed to finish them now?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Find someone else to write them about!”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Barely, just barely, had he resisted telling his well-meaning producer to go fuck himself.</em>
</p>
<p>—he had arrived home to Hee-jae shoving a steaming bowl of something into his hands.</p>
<p>“Here, eat this,” he said urgently. “It’s a new recipe I’ve been dying to try and they finally had decent green onions at the store!”</p>
<p>He was a <em>very</em> good cook, if In-wook wasn’t careful he would need to buy bigger pants.</p>
<p>Still, In-wook was bothered by the unequal division of labor—</p>
<p><em>“What labor?” Hee-jae asked over a glass of wine. “I told you, I pay someone to do that. If it bothers you so much, you can wash the dishes tomorrow</em>.”</p>
<p>—and funds—</p>
<p>
  <em>“It’s just to cover utilities.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Hee-jae snorted. “Get out of town, you told me yesterday you didn’t eat lunch because you needed to make your car payment.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Hee-jae—“</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>The lawyer batted away his hand. “I don’t want your money! Now sit down and look pretty, the rice will be done in five minutes.”</em>
</p>
<p>—but Hee-jae was decidedly not.</p>
<p>
  <em>“I’m definitely imposing,” In-wook worried over dinner one day while at the same time worrying what he would do if Hee-jae agreed and kicked him out.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Hee-jae didn’t even look up from his soup. “You’re definitely not. I like having company.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Why? I’m a random stranger you met in a bar, why go out of your way to help me like this?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Maybe because I relate to you far too much. Both of us thought we had our life partners finally with us, only to have them spit in our faces and leave us reeling.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>In-wook looked back down at his soup, pain squeezing his heart. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hee-jae give him a kind smile.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Your company helps me too, you know. As I’m sure was obvious, I was miserable after my ex and I broke up. Having someone at home to test recipes on and watch soccer with on weekends has helped.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>In-wook smiled.</em>
</p>
<p>Following that conversation, the few times In-wook had a moment to spare at home he would often find himself on the couch with Hee-jae watching some sort of murder mystery—</p>
<p>
  <em>“Pffftttt,” Hee-jae snorted angrily from where he was eating popcorn at the other end of the couch. “I could have gotten him off for that.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>In-wook glanced at him.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“All that evidence they just presented?” Hee-jae shook his head. “Circumstantial at best.”</em>
</p>
<p><em>In-wook laughed.</em> <em>“Good to know.”</em></p>
<p>—listening to him relate the entire plot of his new favorite novel—</p>
<p><em>“In-wook shi, you have </em>got<em> to read this after I’m done, you won’t believe what happens next!”</em></p>
<p>
  <em>“How could I possibly read it, you’ve already told me everything that happens.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Read it anyway.”</em>
</p>
<p>—or laughing at him as he yelled at the TV during a soccer match. In-wook, normally a quiet man both at home and at work, honestly couldn’t say he minded. He appreciated Hee-jae’s company too.</p>
<p>It was so different from living with Jisoo, but it wasn’t worse. Compared to recent times, it was actually much better.</p>
<p>In-wook was not sure how Hee-jae did it but soon he found the dreadful dark cloud that had been over his head since that ill fated dinner with his ex-wife to be lifting. And he was grateful. Who knew how long that would have taken without him (or where In-wook would have ended up, what he would have done, without him).</p>
<p>They grew close —very close— very quickly.</p>
<p>One warm weekend not long into their arrangement, In-wook had been half dozing, half composing in his head on the couch when suddenly there was a lawyer draped across his lap.</p>
<p>In-wook blinked down at him. “…Yes?”</p>
<p>“If I were to find a stray piano—“</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“—That no one wanted—“</p>
<p>“Absolutely not.”</p>
<p>“Why not?!” Hee-jae <em>whined</em>, cat stretching over his lap and looking up at him. “If you had a piano here, you wouldn’t have to pay as many studio fees! <em>And</em> I could listen to you practice and compose.”</p>
<p>In-wook snorted, running a hand through Hee-jae’s hair without thinking, as he would his (ex) wife’s. “You don’t want to listen to me practice and compose.”</p>
<p>“Yes I do,” Hee-jae replied, leaning into the touch.</p>
<p>“All day? Every day?”</p>
<p>The lawyer grinned up at him. “Sounds like heaven.”</p>
<p>“Not even you could possibly love classical music that much.”</p>
<p>“Try me.”</p>
<p>“If a piano shows up in this apartment I will simply die of embarrassment and leave.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae snorted. “No you wouldn’t. You like my cooking too much.”</p>
<p>In-wook laughed. “Touché.”</p>
<p>After that, Hee-jae always watched TV with his head in In-wook’s lap while the pianist played with his hair or tapped out one-handed pieces on his shoulder.</p>
<p>It was just what they did.</p>
<p>“But <em>why</em> would you want a roommate?” In-wook asked him one night after a few too many drinks during a murder-mystery. “You’ve worked so hard to afford a place like this and you don’t want it to yourself?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae shifted to look up at him. “Honestly…I didn’t think I would have it to myself for this long. I was dating somebody else when I first began working at Song&amp;Kim and rented this place. I thought I would marry her soon, but then that ended. Then the same thing happened twice more…and then I met…” he trailed off for a moment. “Her, and the same thing happened again. Now here we are.”</p>
<p>In-wook hummed.</p>
<p>Hee-jae sighed heavily, and pressed his face into In-wook’s belly. “I thought I’d have a partner and a kid by now…” he mumbled, voice mostly obscured by the fabric of In-wook’s shirt.</p>
<p>The pianist huffed out a humorless laugh. “So did I.”</p>
<p>For now though it seemed, each other’s company would suffice.</p>
<p>Until, of course, the proverbial shit hit the fan and In-wook came home late from the studio one day to find Hee-jae drunk off his ass, more drunk than In-wook had ever seen him before.</p>
<p>“Are you okay?” In-wook asked, very concerned, after frantically checking to make sure Hee-jae was still breathing.</p>
<p>The man had his face mostly buried in his arms and was <em>surrounded</em> by whiskey bottles and beer cans (In-wook winced. Anyone who had ever drank in their lives knew not to mix so much beer and liquor). Slowly, he shook his head.</p>
<p>In-wook grabbed him a glass of water, quickly tossing his bag onto the counter and sitting down next to him. “What happened?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae didn’t reply, only kept shaking his head.</p>
<p>In-wook looked around, trying to think of what to do, before pulling Hee-jae into a sitting position to get some water into him. After a glass of water, the lawyer only managed to sober up enough to stagger into the bathroom and spend the entire night horribly sick (as In-wook cleaned up the numerous bottles in the kitchen, he could see why. Had it been anyone else with less of a tolerance for alcohol, the pianist would have taken him to a hospital on suspicion of alcohol poisoning. For a decent portion of the night, he wondered if he still should).</p>
<p>In-wook finally got him into bed around three in the morning, after which he cleaned up the apartment as best he could (whatever had happened that had caused him to drink so much would not be helped by a messy apartment in the morning) before passing out on the couch himself (he was a classical pianist, not a caregiver. He did his best, but it was exhausting).</p>
<p>For the first time in as long as they had been living together, In-wook woke up before Hee-jae. When ten o’clock rolled by and Hee-jae still had not surfaced, In-wook allowed himself to be extremely concerned.</p>
<p>Carefully made his way up the stairs to the bedroom, a bowl of scorched rice in his hand. “Hee-jae?” Getting no reply, he walked further into the room. “Hee-jae ah?”</p>
<p>The man was burrowed completely under the covers and curled into a ball half hidden under the pillows. He gave no reply. The only thing preventing In-wook from worrying he had died during the night was the slow rise and fall of the blankets.</p>
<p>“Hee-jae ah,” he said again gently, sitting tentatively on the edge of the bed. “I brought you some breakfast. Scorched rice, best for—“ He had placed a hand carefully on the man’s shoulder, only to have him jerk away.</p>
<p>“Don’t touch me.” The words were mumbled out, barely audible or understandable, but In-wook heard them all the same.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” he said, standing up and setting the bowl down on the bedside table. “I’ll leave this here.” Briefly, he paused. “…Are you okay?”</p>
<p>“‘M fine.”</p>
<p>In-wook sighed skeptically. “Well…I’ll be downstairs…if you want to talk about what happened.”</p>
<p>“I don’t.”</p>
<p>“All right.”</p>
<p>In-wook left him alone then.</p>
<p>When noon rolled around and Hee-jae was still not out of bed, In-wook wracked his brain trying to think of something he could do to cheer the man up, or at least lift him enough out of his sudden depression to get him out of bed. His eyes fell on the record player in the corner, and he pulled out his phone.</p>
<p>“Hello?”</p>
<p>“Jisoo,” he said, heart clenching painfully at the sound of his dear wife’s <em>(ex-</em>wife’s) voice. “How are you?”</p>
<p>“I am…well,” she said a bit apprehensively. “Are you okay?”</p>
<p>“I’m fine,” he said quickly. “I need a favor.”</p>
<p>“What is it?”</p>
<p>He smiled. His (not anymore) dear, generous Jisoo. “I need to borrow the keyboard. Just for today, I’ll bring it back to you tomorrow.”</p>
<p>A moment of prolonged silence. “…You hate the keyboard.”</p>
<p>“I do,” he said, grabbing his car keys. “But a friend of mine doesn’t.”</p>
<p>Half an hour later, he was face to face with his ex-wife for the first time since they had divorced.</p>
<p>“Keep it as long as you need,” she said, a small smile on her face. “I haven’t been using it.”</p>
<p>“In that case I might just sell it when I’m done with it.”</p>
<p>She made an astounded noise. “Don’t sell it! I like it.”</p>
<p>In-wook cracked a smile. “Thank you, Jisoo,” he said, putting the monstrosity in the back of his car and turning to leave.</p>
<p>“In-wook ah!”</p>
<p>He suppressed a wince and turned around.</p>
<p>“When you have time…no rush…” she murmured. “…Can we meet? Talk?”</p>
<p>In-wook gave a pained sigh. “I don’t know when I’ll have time…”</p>
<p>“I understand—“</p>
<p>“But okay. When I have time.”</p>
<p>She smiled the same smile that had made him want to marry her. “It’s good to see you, In-wook.”</p>
<p>“And you.”</p>
<p>An hour after he had left, In-wook was back in Hee-jae’s apartment, sitting in front of the keyboard.</p>
<p><em>I can’t believe I’m doing this…</em> he thought, frowning at it. Then he looked to the stairs that led to the bedroom, his friend hidden away up them, and cracked his knuckles. <em>Alright then.</em></p>
<p>It took a while, all of his warmup exercises and a good bit of Mozart (Hee-jae’s favorite), to finally draw his friend out. The man was dressed in sweatpants and an old t-shirt, his glasses askew on his face when he emerged, sitting at the bottom of the stairs when In-wook looked up.</p>
<p>“Where did you get that?” the lawyer asked, voice rough with sleep and something else.</p>
<p>“I borrowed it from my ex-wife.”</p>
<p>“Your ex-wife? I thought you hated keyboards.”</p>
<p>In-wook nodded. “Yes and I do.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae swallowed. “Why?”</p>
<p>In-wook regarded his friend for a long moment. “You were sad, so I tried to think of something to cheer you up. And you’ve been asking me to play here for a long time, so…”</p>
<p>The tiniest of smiles touched Hee-jae’s lips.</p>
<p>That was enough for In-wook. “There’s towels and clothes in the bathroom if you wanted to shower.”</p>
<p>“Thank you,” he murmured, gazing at In-wook a moment longer before disappearing inside.</p>
<p>Hee-jae had never been one for long showers (no time for that, he always said), but he stayed in there for over half an hour. In-wook kept playing, pushing away his worry. At least Hee-jae looked a little better when he finally emerged.</p>
<p>“The scorched rice was good,” he said quietly, usual strength gone from his voice. “Thank you for it.”</p>
<p>“Considering you have made me two out of three meals a day for however long it is I’ve been here, it was the least I could do.” He got up from his keyboard and joined Hee-jae at the table. “Are you feeling any better?” he tentatively asked.</p>
<p>“A little bit.” He stared at the table for a moment before hissing, “<em>Shit</em>, I didn’t call into work—“</p>
<p>“Don’t worry, I did.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae looked at him, stunned.</p>
<p>“I said I was your neighbor, that you were sick and had lost your voice so you got me to call.”</p>
<p>“I would have just emailed.”</p>
<p>“Well, I thought pretending to be your neighbor and having you act a little out of character was better than me breaking into your laptop.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae cracked another small smile. “Fair enough.”</p>
<p>In-wook got up to make them both some tea and Hee-jae followed him into the kitchen, sitting down at the table.</p>
<p>“May I…ask you what happened last night?” he asked when he returned, setting a cup down in front of Hee-jae.</p>
<p>The lawyer quickly looked down at the table, taking a sip of his tea. “Nothing happened. It was stupid…an overreaction after a long day, nothing more.”</p>
<p>Somehow, In-wook very much doubted that. “Tell me about it anyway. I won’t judge. You’ll feel better after you air it, and if it is stupid like you say, we can laugh about it together.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae sighed heavily. “Remember I told you they hired my ex?”</p>
<p>“I do.” He paused. “Something happened with her then?”</p>
<p>A nod.</p>
<p>“At work yesterday?”</p>
<p>Another nod.</p>
<p>“What happened?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae shut his eyes. “It’s just stupid…”</p>
<p>“Well…” In-wook murmured carefully. “It made you this upset.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae simply shook his head.</p>
<p>The pianist took a sip of his own tea. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I won’t push you.”</p>
<p>It took Hee-jae a long time to reply. “I know.” A while longer. “It’s just…she…” He broke off again and swore angrily. <em>“Fuck!”</em></p>
<p>The pianist sat in silent company with him as he made up his mind and found the words.</p>
<p>“She shoved me into a closet at work yesterday.” He grinned humorlessly. “See? That sounds so fucking <em>stupid!”</em></p>
<p>In-wook blinked, guessing there was more to it than her walking by, pushing him into a closet and shutting the door before going on her merry way. “…Was that all that happened?”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>
  <em>Don’t touch me.</em>
</p>
<p>“What happened then?”</p>
<p>The lawyer fidgeted in his seat. “It was nothing...” he muttered. “It’s just...she just…fucking does whatever she wants and she doesn’t care who she bulldozes over…”</p>
<p>“Yeah?”</p>
<p>When he paused, In-wook waited patiently for him to continue.</p>
<p>“She…nearly tackled me into the janitor’s closet in front of several of my colleagues and two clients. No doubt it looked like she was pushing me in there for a fucking <em>quickie</em> or the like.”</p>
<p>In-wook listened quietly, apprehension making his heart beat faster.</p>
<p>“Once she had me in there, she pushed me against a shelf and held me there...with her body. I don’t know why.” Hee-jae’s voice trembled just a little. With what, In-wook couldn’t tell. “She said she did it to hide from a client, but I don’t see why she couldn’t have just hid in there alone, why did she have to drag me into it?” The lawyer folded in on himself as if he were cold. “Because if that’s why she did it, she wouldn’t have had a reason to…rub herself on me, right?”</p>
<p>In-wook began to feel a bit sick, but he kept silent and impassive as his friend went on.</p>
<p>“She had a hand over my mouth to keep me quiet because the client was right outside. Then someone started trying to open the door, so she pressed against me even more to hold the door closed with her foot and I…” Hee-jae broke off for a moment, an ugly flush coloring his features.</p>
<p>The words <em>got hard</em> went unsaid, but understood well enough.</p>
<p>“I told her to get off me and just lean against the door, but she wouldn’t. She just kept …poking my chest and putting her hands on me as she was leaning on me…” He shook himself bitterly. “I don’t know why it’s <em>bothering</em> me so much considering…”</p>
<p>“Considering?” In-wook prompted when Hee-jae seemed to lack the words to go on.</p>
<p>“Considering that I’ve <em>slept</em> with her before. And the direction the conversation went in after the client went away. She was mad that the client was there because that client could identify her as the two-timing lowlife she is and apparently that’s my fault. I told her she should have considered our past relationship before deciding to work <em>at the same firm as me</em> and she asked what we were before so I said…we were two people in love. Like I thought we were.”</p>
<p>In-wook studied the colors of the wooden table, his friend’s words weighing heavy on his heart.</p>
<p>“She told me I need to let it go…” Hee-jae’s voice began to shake more. “That pissed me off. It pisses me off so much that she has been blaming what <em>she</em> did on <em>me</em> so I said that she needed to clean up her own fucking mess and not drag me into it, that I wouldn’t let her push me around in the place I’ve worked at longer, which in turn pissed <em>her</em> off…”</p>
<p>In-wook leaned back in his chair, folding his hands in his lap. “So she did something?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae shut his eyes and nodded. “She…she grabbed...me.”</p>
<p>Once again, Hee-jae did not need to elaborate on which body part he was referring to when he said that. In-wook gathered well enough.</p>
<p>“And…found it…really amusing that…” He swallowed thickly. “She held me hard enough to hurt and did…other things…”</p>
<p>A vague motion with his hand clarified what he was unable to say and In-wook was no longer sad as he listened to his friend recount what had happened. Increasingly, he was <em>furious</em>.</p>
<p>The lawyer was shivering. “I was so surprised I didn’t even say anything. And she just stood there…doing that and told me that I needed to stop playing the tough guy, reminded me that I would fall much harder than her if I fell and that she would not hesitate to take me down with her if I tried to stop her. Said she would turn me in herself if I didn’t do what she wanted and stayed out of her way regarding the case we’re being forced to work on together.”</p>
<p><em>Who does that?</em> In-wook wondered. <em>Who the fuck does that to someone else?</em></p>
<p>“And then she just walked out.” Hee-jae’s voice caught in his throat and the pianist looked up in time to see a tear roll down his cheek. “And the cleaning lady walked in. And she…she <em>saw</em> me in the state I was in. The look she gave me, In-wook, I’ve never been more humiliated in my entire life…” Tears were running freely down his cheeks by then. “That wasn’t even the worst part. Then I had to walk out of there and listen to half the office tease and <em>congratulate</em> me on fucking Geum-ja in the closet in the middle of the day, <em>I didn’t!</em> But who would believe that given what they all saw. And the cleaning staff, the rumor was halfway down the street by lunchtime, I don’t even want to show my face in the district for the next month…”</p>
<p>There was a drawn out pause and for the life of him, In-wook had no idea what to say.</p>
<p>Hee-jae ripped his glasses off, tossing them onto the table and burying his face in his hands. “Since then I just haven’t been able to get the feeling of her hands <em>off</em> me. It doesn’t make any sense considering our history, but… But I came home and I showered twice before you got home and I still just feel so…” <em>dirty</em>. He made a disgusted sound. “She has so much over me now, In-wook, even more now that she pulled that stunt. Why didn’t I say anything? Why didn’t I just shout get off me, don’t touch me, and fucking walk out the door, to hell if that client could identify her? She’s ruined what’s left of my reputation and the worst part is that she’s <em>right</em>, she could retake the bar exam and start over, but I would be <em>ruined</em>, <em>disowned</em>, left with <em>nothing and no one</em>.”</p>
<p>In-wook teared up a bit himself as he bore witness to his friend’s despair.</p>
<p>Hee-jae’s breath stuttered harshly in his throat. “And I don’t…I don’t know what to do because I can’t go along with what she says and dig myself even deeper into a hole but I can’t <em>not </em>and I just feel so<em>...</em> and I don’t…<em>I don’t know what to do—“</em></p>
<p>“Come here.” In-wook hauled him into his arms and Hee-jae went readily, burying his face in In-wook’s shoulder and <em>sobbing</em>. What could In-wook do but hold him, let him wrap his arms tightly around the pianist’s waist and cry until the tears dried up.</p>
<p>They passed the rest of the day with In-wook at his keyboard playing one handed whatever came to mind while Hee-jae sat on the floor next to him, head on In-wook’s thigh and the pianist’s fingers in his hair. At some point in the evening, In-wook was struck with the thought that he had no idea how old Hee-jae was. It hadn’t really mattered before, and he supposed now it still didn’t. All the same…curled on the floor with his head in In-wook’s lap, he seemed so terribly, terribly young.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>When In-wook woke up on the couch the following morning, he was not alone. The gears in his head ground slowly together as he blinked sleep from his eyes. Finally managing to locate his glasses on the coffee table, he was greeted with the sight of Yoon Hee-jae tucked between himself and the couch, one arm wrapped securely around In-wook’s waist and his head pillowed on the pianist’s shoulder, fast asleep.</p>
<p>In-wook blinked, trying to remember exactly how they had spent the evening to have ended up like this.</p>
<p>Late in the evening, they had finally gotten up from their spots by the keyboard and In-wook had coaxed some food into his friend before they spent the rest of the evening on the couch watching a cooking show. Hee-jae had been tucked to In-wook’s side rather than draped over his lap. As far as the pianist could guess, they must have both just fallen asleep, tipped over, and adjusted from there.</p>
<p>Part of In-wook thought to get up, slide out from under Hee-jae’s arm, but that would surely wake him. If he was being honest, for whatever reason he didn’t really mind having the man in his arms, despite being generally a private person who liked his personal space. It had been such a long time since he had fallen asleep with someone in his arms. A year at least, if not more than that.</p>
<p>Instead of pushing Hee-jae away, he found himself pulling a blanket off the back of the couch and tossing it over them before wrapping his arms more securely around his friend. Hee-jae made a contented sound, still asleep, and snuggled closer to him.</p>
<p>As In-wook drifted back to sleep, a part of him balked at how close he had gotten with this man in such a short time, but he pushed the thought aside.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>Hee-jae took off one more day from work, and In-wook couldn’t find it within himself to leave him alone for it.</p>
<p>“So...<em>why</em> aren’t you coming in again?” his manager groused on the other end of the line as In-wook made increasingly desperate hand motions towards Hee-jae, who was in the kitchen making breakfast.</p>
<p>“I’m...uh....” In-wook stammered as Hee-jae silently yelled at him to say something. “My...uh...car broke down.”</p>
<p>He deliberately ignored Hee-jae’s extremely disappointed look as crickets all but sounded from the phone. “...I can come pick you up,” his manager offered.</p>
<p>“Oh...no it’s okay. I have to...get it fixed so...”</p>
<p>“Is it badly broken down?”</p>
<p>“Oh...yes.” He threw a silently cackling Hee-jae a withering look. “Very badly, yes. Have to get it fixed. I’ll call you tomorrow if I need a ride.”</p>
<p>“So glad you’re moving on from your marriage.”</p>
<p>In-wook barely heard the click of the call ending over Hee-jae’s roaring laughter. His cheeks burned.</p>
<p>“He thinks you <em>got some</em>,” the lawyer teased as he cooked.</p>
<p>In-wook scoffed. “All I got was about two centimeters of space on the couch. I almost rolled clean off several times.”</p>
<p>“What can I say? You’re quite comfortable.”</p>
<p>In-wook thought to feel something like embarrassment, both at his producer’s insinuation and at Hee-jae’s sidelong glance, but couldn’t find anything wrong with having fallen asleep on the couch with his friend. People used to do that all the time back in Norway when it was cold as shit. Not him, but people did...</p>
<p>He drank more of his tea.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>In-wook spent a good chunk of the day composing (suddenly, finishing all the pieces he had started to write for his now ex-wife did not seem so terribly daunting a task). Hee-jae sat on the couch, trying to get some work done.</p>
<p>“I’m not familiar with any of these,” the lawyer asked after a while, having abandoned his work in favor of watching In-wook play.</p>
<p>“That’s because I wrote them myself,” the pianist replied, not looking up from his music. “Until today, none of these have ever been heard outside of a studio.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae hummed. “Where do you get the inspiration?”</p>
<p>In-wook snorted. “You’re going to laugh.”</p>
<p>“I won’t. Promise.”</p>
<p>“Alright then.” In-wook put down his pencil and turned to look at him. “Up until now, everything I have ever written myself has been inspired by my ex-wife.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae paused just a second longer than might have been normal. “Aww, how sweet.”</p>
<p>If his voice was a bit flat, In-wook chalked it up to emotional exhaustion. “Yeah... My producer was getting so angry at me because during the breakup of my marriage, of course I wasn’t working on these. If I had a dollar for every time he said ‘<em>In-wook shi, you will never advance if you don’t publish another album’</em> I’d never have to work a day again in my life.” He smiled wistfully at nothing. “I don’t know why, but today finishing these doesn’t seem quite so impossible...”</p>
<p>Hee-jae didn’t reply. After a moment, In-wook went back to playing.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>Later that evening, In-wook had a cooking show already on as he waited for Hee-jae to come in and watch with him, as he always did. That night the lawyer seemed to be dragging his feet, but the pianist supposed he had a lot on his mind.</p>
<p>When he finally did come in, he was acting strangely. Instead of immediately laying down and resting his head in In-wook’s lap or on his shoulder, Hee-jae sat at the far end of the couch, posture quite stiff.</p>
<p>In-wook blinked at him in mild confusion, but ultimately said nothing. If he wanted his space, that was fine, even if it left In-wook a bit cold and reaching for a blanket (Hee-jae had the money to pay for a place like this and whatever else he could ever want, but not to turn the blasted heat up? In-wook would never understand him).</p>
<p>But before the next episode had started, Hee-jae had scooted over and laid down, tentatively resting his head in In-wook’s lap. In-wook placed the customary hand in his hair while his other rested on the man’s shoulder, his thumb brushing back and forth over the fabric of his shirt.</p>
<p>“Are you okay?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae shrugged. “I’m just... dreading going back to work tomorrow.”</p>
<p>In-wook hummed. “Just...take it as it comes. Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it. We’ll get through it.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae was silent for a long moment. “We?”</p>
<p>In-wook blinked. “I’m your friend, aren’t I? And your housemate. I’m not going to let you flounder alone, especially not when you’ve gone out of your way to give me a home.”</p>
<p>“Friends...” Hee-jae murmured. “Yes...that.” And he said no more.</p>
<p>A while later In-wook, quite engrossed in the show by that point, looked down at the other man when he felt Hee-jae reach up and gently grasp the hand resting on his shoulder. When In-wook didn’t pull away, he carefully laced their fingers together.</p>
<p>They stayed like that until the show ended.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>Hee-jae didn’t mention his job again (or his new colleague) for a good long while after that, In-wook lost track. He thought to ask, but there was something called attorney-client privilege and In-wook never wanted to accidentally pressure him into revealing something about a case, so he left that alone too.</p>
<p>But he kept the keyboard. At least it was something to run scales on. And it made Hee-jae smile, so…</p>
<p>He had been living with Hee-jae for several months by that point and he was still stunned at having found someone who loved classical music as much as Hee-jae did. Whenever In-wook wasn’t playing, the lawyer had a record of some sort on.</p>
<p>They really were the perfect housemates.</p>
<p>“Aww put that back on!” Hee-jae complained where he sat at the table.</p>
<p>In-wook took the record off and put it back in its sleeve. “I will gladly put on anything but that one.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae put his pen down and took off his glasses. “What have you got against Ko I-man?”</p>
<p>“Nothing,” In-wook said with a half-smile. “Nice guy, if a bit young for his age. Talented violinist.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae gawked. “You <em>know</em> him??”</p>
<p>In-wook grinned fully and nodded. “Yes, I’ve accompanied him...four times?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae stumbled over his words. “Oh you<em> have</em> to introduce me...well I’ve already met him...twice...but you <em>have</em> to! Under better circumstances this time.” Then he frowned. “So why won’t you play his record?!”</p>
<p>“Because that’s <em>me</em> accompanying him and it is probably the single worst recording I’ve ever made!” He was still smiling as Hee-jae made a face. “And I’d succeeded in mostly forgetting one of the most embarrassing moments of my career until you went and put it on.”</p>
<p>“You sound fine.”</p>
<p>“I do not! The sound is all wrong and I make a terrible mistake about 2/3 of the way through. I swear it’ll send me into a slump if I hear it again.”</p>
<p>The look on the lawyer’s face was oddly soft as he said, “Well, we can’t have that” and relented.</p>
<p>In-wook shuffled through his remaining (extensive) stack of records and put on a nice waltz. “I always loved playing this.”</p>
<p>“Do you dance?”</p>
<p>In-wook turned to look at Hee-jae, a bit surprised. “Of course not, how am I supposed to dance when I’m the one playing the music?”</p>
<p>“Fair, but still.” Hee-jae stood up. “Seems disgraceful. I’ll just have to rectify that.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae had taken his hand and swept him into his arms before In-wook could even think to argue. “Two men can’t dance together!” he spluttered, one hand on Hee-jae’s chest and the other clasped in the lawyer’s hand as the man spun them around the room.</p>
<p>“Why not?” Hee-jae asked, an odd note in his voice.</p>
<p>In-wook found he didn’t have a solid answer for that other than ‘it simply wasn’t done’ but it was. Men danced together all the time in Norway, where on earth had he picked up such a sentiment? Korean societal norms really had rubbed off on him.</p>
<p><em>And so much the two of you do is simply not done</em>.</p>
<p>“Besides,” the lawyer said, pulling him closer. “Who else is going to teach you to dance? You never go anywhere!”</p>
<p>“I go to the studio!”</p>
<p>“So glad you go to work, anything else?”</p>
<p>In-wook huffed. “You’re one to talk. You may go to more places, but still it’s all <em>for work</em>.”</p>
<p>“Fair enough.”</p>
<p>For the rest of the song, Hee-jae spun him around the floor and In-wook helplessly followed, grinning the entire time as he struggled to keep up. Soon though the song changed to something much slower and in turn Hee-jae’s movements slowed as well.</p>
<p>Dancing was...quite nice, wasn’t it? In-wook found himself relaxing into the other man’s arms. Driven by a craving he couldn’t name, he even found himself resting his cheek against his chest. The arm around his back tightened.</p>
<p>“No one will see us...” Hee-jae whispered to no one in particular as he rested his cheek on top of In-wook’s head.</p>
<p>The pianist hummed. He looked up after a moment and the lawyer shifted to meet his gaze, something longing in his eyes.</p>
<p>“In-wook ah...” he breathed so softly the pianist thought he might have imagined it.</p>
<p>And just like that, the song ended and was replaced by a much more upbeat one. Moment broken, whatever it had been, Hee-jae stepped back and cleared his throat.</p>
<p>“Enough of that slow shit,” he quipped, though the light blush on his cheeks did not escape In-wook. “Let me show you how to really waltz and then you can tell me if knowing how to dance doesn’t help you feel into the music more.”</p>
<p>Late into the night as he stared at the ceiling trying to fall asleep, he couldn’t shake an odd feeling settling around his heart. For the life of him, he couldn’t place what it was.</p>
<p>And it did not go away, as was made clear one day not long after In-wook learned to dance.</p>
<p>It had been a garbage day for both of them as it turned out. More so for Hee-jae than In-wook, but still.</p>
<p>In-wook had spent the entire day fighting with the sound engineer (not Seo-woo. She had gone on vacation with her new boyfriend and he could not wait until she came back) and by 5 o’clock he was absolutely<em> fuming</em>.</p>
<p>That’s when Hee-jae called.</p>
<p>“I’m fucking stuck in court,” he hissed. “The prosecution is putting up a huge fight and I can’t get away.”</p>
<p>“I’ll pick up something for dinner, just text me what you want.” As he said the last words, he realized he was talking to a dead line.</p>
<p>An hour and a half later, two words showed up on his screen.</p>
<p>
  <em>We lost.</em>
  
</p>
<p>Oof.</p>
<p>In-wook had just picked up Hee-jae’s favorite comfort food at a place near the studio on his way home when he found himself passing by a flower shop. The same one he used to buy his wife plants from all the time.</p>
<p>He smiled softly at it and had a thought. Hee-jae had a small collection of plants. One more might be a nice touch, especially after a shitty day.</p>
<p>Ten minutes later, he walked out with an orchid. </p>
<p>“Sorry I’m late,” he said to the man, who had somehow managed to beat him home and now had his head pillowed on his arms at the kitchen table. “Got side tracked.”</p>
<p>“You’re fine,” the lawyer replied tiredly and without looking up.</p>
<p>“Got something for you.”</p>
<p>“Food?” Hee-jae looked up and In-wook watched with a grin, that new feeling warming his heart, as his eyes widened.</p>
<p>“I always used to buy my wife plants when she was sad or had a bad day. Figured they brighten everything up.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae stood and carefully took the plant from him. “You...got me a plant? Because I was sad?”</p>
<p>In-wook fidgeted a bit. “I did...” <em>Was that a bad thing?</em></p>
<p>His worries were silenced when Hee-jae met his gaze, looking like he was about to cry. “You are so good to me.”</p>
<p>In-wook blinked. “Of course. You’re my friend” was all he could think to say to such an odd statement. <em>Of course I want to make you happy. Why wouldn’t I?</em></p>
<p>Was that such an odd thing?</p>
<p>…Or was it?</p>
<p>“Yes...” Hee-jae murmured, a blush reddening his cheeks. “Of course...” He dipped his head. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>If he acted a little strangely the rest of the evening, In-wook decided not to pay it any mind. He’d had a rough day, after all.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>Hee-jae soon picked up the habit of calling In-wook every day at lunch time.</p>
<p>The first time he did it, In-wook had thought something was wrong. Rarely did he call in the middle of the day.</p>
<p>“Nothing’s wrong,” Hee-jae’s voice said on the other end. “I just wanted to see how your day was going.”</p>
<p>“Oh...well...good I suppose?” In-wook said, relaxing a bit on the piano bench. “Yours?”</p>
<p>And so it went on from there, with such regularity that Seo-woo starting waiting for Hee-jae to call to go eat herself, as she knew that’s when In-wook would take a break too.</p>
<p>“In-wook shi?” she called as he was leaving one day.</p>
<p>“Yes?”</p>
<p>“Forgive me if it’s rude to say...”</p>
<p>“Go ahead.”</p>
<p>She gave him a soft smile. “I’m glad you’ve found someone new that makes you so happy. You deserve to be happy.”</p>
<p>He had nodded his thanks to her and spent his entire commute home wondering why he hadn’t correct her and said he had just been talking to his housemate.</p>
<p>He didn’t join Hee-jae on the couch that night. Instead he stayed at his piano, playing melancholy tunes until the wee hours of the morning. He only realized how late it had gotten when Hee-jae touched his shoulder gently.</p>
<p>In-wook jumped and bowed his head when he noticed the time. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize it was so late. I know you have to work tomorrow—“</p>
<p>The lawyer cut him off. “It’s all right. That wasn’t why I came over.” Hee-jae’s hand settle more fully on his shoulder. “I came to ask if you were all right.”</p>
<p>The question punched a breath out of In-wook’s lungs, a wave of pain suddenly crashing down over his heart. “I just...<em>really</em> miss my wife...”</p>
<p>“You still love her?” The question was not meanly said. In fact, he seemed almost surprised.</p>
<p>“Of course I do,” In-wook whispered, shutting his eyes. “You don’t stay in a relationship for 15 years if you don’t...” His breath caught in his throat. “Except...except where she did...”</p>
<p>Hee-jae’s hand rubbed his shoulder gently as he went on.</p>
<p>“And I’m just...<em>heartbroken</em> that she would...” he trailed off.</p>
<p>“Do what?” the other man prompted.</p>
<p>In-wook shook his head slowly. “It’s a long story...” he muttered as his throat closed.</p>
<p>“I have time. I wasn’t sleeping anyway.”</p>
<p>“A story for another day, then.”</p>
<p>The lawyer didn’t press him further. In-wook reached up and squeezed the hand still resting on his shoulder. They stayed like that for a long time.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>Hee-jae had beaten him home, In-wook noticed as he opened the door with the key that said “do not duplicate” that Hee-jae had definitely somehow duplicated and walked in.</p>
<p>The man was sitting on the couch, his clothes a bit askew, leaning his neck on his hand.</p>
<p>In-wook nodded to him. Hee-jae hummed in response.</p>
<p>“How was your day?”</p>
<p>The pianist shrugged. “It would have been a lot more enjoyable if my manager would ever agree to remove his head from his ass, but alas.”</p>
<p>“Still giving you trouble with the album?”</p>
<p>“You better believe it.” He set his bag down at the table. “How was yours?”</p>
<p>“Oh, it was...” he trailed off.</p>
<p>In-wook elected not to press him and dug around in the freezer for leftovers. “Have you eaten yet?”</p>
<p>Half an hour later, both men sat at the table eating leftover ramyeon and kimchi. Hee-jae was oddly quiet, fingers drumming on the left side of his neck as he stared listlessly at his food.</p>
<p>In-wook let him be for the most part, even as a touch of concern twinged in his chest at his friend’s changing behavior. Like this, it generally meant Geum-ja, his ex (understandably so, given all the shit that had gone down with her). His guess was most likely proven correct as, upon glancing up at his friend, he caught a glimpse of what was undoubtedly a bruise on his throat. A mouth-shaped bruise.</p>
<p>In-wook turned his attention back to his food. It was none of his business how and with whom his friend spent his free time.</p>
<p>Later that evening, In-wook had been reading a book on the couch when Hee-jae, fresh out of the shower, appeared.</p>
<p>“Can we talk?” he asked almost sheepishly (<em>definitely</em> not like him). “I...need some advice. From someone who might...know.”</p>
<p>In-wook blinked, closing his book. “Of course.” He went to sit up, but Hee-jae simply motioned for him to move his legs for a second.</p>
<p>The lawyer’s fingers drummed on his calves nervously as he searched for the right words. In-wook waited patiently.</p>
<p>“I...” Hee-jae’s fingers reached up to touch the mark on his throat.</p>
<p>In-wook elected to spare him what, for whatever reason, was suddenly embarrassing the normally unashamed man. “I noticed.”</p>
<p>The lawyer blushed. “Did you ever...regret it? Sleeping with someone?”</p>
<p>The pianist shook his head. “I only ever slept with my wife, so no.” At Hee-jae’s troubled face, In-wook swung his legs off his lap to sit properly beside him on the couch. “You regret it?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae nodded, suddenly looking very frustrated. “I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me...”</p>
<p>“Nothing.”</p>
<p>“It’s not like I haven’t done this before...”</p>
<p>“But we’re not talking about the times before,” In-wook noted. “We’re talking about this time.” Gently, he continued. “Just becauseyou did something and regretted it, even if you’ve done it before, doesn’t mean something’s wrong with you. It just means you know it bothers you now and you might not want to do it again.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae snorted, shifting to rest his head on In-wook’s shoulder.</p>
<p>The pianist thought carefully before continuing. “Are you content to speak so generally? Because you can speak specifically if you want.”</p>
<p>“Wouldn’t that bother a prudent musician like yourself?” the other man teased.</p>
<p>In-wook scoffed. “Oh please, it’s not like I was married for 9 years. How dare you mention sex, Hee-jae, goodness.”</p>
<p>The lawyer chuckled and relaxed against him, sighing out a breath. “I...slept with Geum-ja.”</p>
<p>In-wook nodded and kept his opinions to himself.</p>
<p>(It had already been more than clear over the past few months that Hee-jae was no longer interested in remembering that the closet incident had occurred, had somewhat angrily insisted that it was just a misunderstanding best forgotten last time it had come up, and In-wook did not wish to risk pushing his friend away by bringing it up again, no matter how much it concerned him).</p>
<p>“So you two are back together?” Something twinged in his chest as he said that. He wasn’t sure what it was.</p>
<p>To his surprise, Hee-jae shook his head. “No...” he murmured before adding after a pause. “Do you promise not to judge me too harshly?”</p>
<p>In-wook wrapped an arm around him and nodded into his hair. “You’ve not judged me for still loving my wife even after everything that happened, so I couldn’t even if I wanted to. But I won’t.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae swallowed. “So...she was having a bad day. Something about her father...long story. And I told her...that she could use me. If she wanted.”</p>
<p>...<em>Yikes.</em> He had known Hee-jae suffered from self-esteem issues that he covered up with arrogance, but <em>yikes.</em></p>
<p>As he promised, In-wook kept silent (had he been so very different once, trying to salvage his own marriage?)</p>
<p>At least he had <em>something</em> —some <em>wisp</em> of a decent memory and at least a loving friendship— to salvage.</p>
<p>“She agreed,” Hee-jae went on. “And she said she had no interest in rekindling a romance, having a full relationship. I thought I would be fine with that...but I’m not.”</p>
<p>In-wook drummed out a one handed melody on his back.</p>
<p>“And I...sometimes it seems like she loves me, like some of the things she does mean she cares about me. But then... then she goes and carries on with other people and maybe she’s just stringing them along like she did me but I just <em>hate</em> it and I’ve made a terrible fool of myself twice now in front of a client because of it but I just...”</p>
<p>More than once during the time that had been friends, had been living together, In-wook had been struck by how <em>young</em> Hee-jae was, both in actual age and at times, maturity level. His driver’s license said he was 26, and while that <em>was</em> young, in times like this he seemed even younger. And from what he’d said, it sounded like this Jung Geum-ja was older, older than In-wook even.</p>
<p>
  <em>Imagine being the kind of person who took advantage of someone younger and more naive than you for the sheer sport of it.</em>
</p>
<p>In-wook would have hated to see anyone strung along like this, but it irked him especially that this woman seemed to be using her age and experience to do it.</p>
<p>Hee-jae was crying by then (might have been a little drunk, In-wook realized, smelling the alcohol on his breath) and he hid his face in In-wook’s sweater.</p>
<p>“It hurt when we slept together and then she acted like it was nothing. Like it meant nothing. Like all I am to her is just a <em>tool</em>, someone to push around and lead on and humiliate when it suits her. But then...” He shook his head. “But then I can’t believe that...that everything was insincere. That every sweet moment...”</p>
<p>He finally trailed off.</p>
<p>In-wook rubbed his back for a moment long before speaking. “It doesn’t sound like this situation is making you very happy.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae shook his head.</p>
<p>“Do you want my advice?”</p>
<p>“Obviously.” The younger man shifted, pressing closer to him. “That’s why I came to you.”</p>
<p>“I think you should let her go.” In-wook was more than expecting his friend to stiffen the way he did against his side. “I know you loved her,” he went on gently. “But sometimes people just don’t love you back.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae didn’t reply, nor did he move.</p>
<p>“And it sucks. It’s not fair. But there’s nothing you can do to change it. Take it from someone who has all too recently learned that. Let her go. Move on, or try to. You’ll find somebody else, someone who will love you the way you deserve and will treat you well, won’t leave you here with me crying every other week because they keep hurting you.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae abruptly stood up, tears shining starkly in his eyes, and fled. In-wook listened as the bedroom door upstairs shut loudly.</p>
<p>He sighed heavily and went back to his book. There were some lessons people —including In-wook himself— had to learn the hard way.</p>
<p>And Hee-jae was going to learn it the hard way, if not the worst way, In-wook lamented when he got a call at 10pm the very next night from none other than his wayward roommate.</p>
<p>“In-wook...” he said when the pianist picked up, sounding exhausted and...cold?</p>
<p>“Hee-jae ah,” In-wook said, sitting up as he blinked sleep from his eyes. “What’s wrong?”</p>
<p>“I know it’s late,” he muttered. “But can you come pick me up?”</p>
<p>“Of course,” In-wook said immediately, grabbing his keys and shrugging on a coat. “Where are you?”</p>
<p>“I have no idea.”</p>
<p>In-wook paused for the briefest moments before he walked a little faster to his car out in the parking garage. “Do you remember how you got there?”</p>
<p>“The lift...up to the mountain. I was th-there on that.”</p>
<p>In-wook thought to ask<em> why</em>, but deemed that unimportant. “Can you get back on it and come down? I’ll pick you up at the bottom.”</p>
<p>“I can’t...I don’t have any money.”</p>
<p>In-wook paused again as he was getting in his car. It was unlike Hee-jae to be so unprepared. “...Were you mugged?” That would explain the chattering teeth on the other end of the line, if someone had taken everything of value, including his coat.</p>
<p>“N-no...” Hee-jae answered. “I’ll...explain when you get here, just...”</p>
<p>It took In-wook half an hour to find him. By the time he did, the man was half frozen on a bench, shivering so badly he stumbled when he walked. In-wook bundled him into the car, wrapping him up in his jacket and turning the heat on full blast, concern making his heart pound.</p>
<p>They were halfway home when In-wook decided to push him, as it was obvious he was not going to volunteer what had happened.</p>
<p>“Do you want to tell me how you ended up on that mountain with no wallet and no coat?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae pulled In-wook’s coat tighter around him. “Not really, no.”</p>
<p>In-wook sighed. “Hee-jae ah, if you were mugged, it’s not your fault. Being mugged says nothing about you—“</p>
<p>“I wasn’t mugged,” Hee-jae said sharply, cutting him off.</p>
<p>“Then what—“ In-wook paused, gears turning in his head, before he continued with just a touch of anger in his voice. “Does this have something to do with her?”</p>
<p>Ashamed, Hee-jae nodded.</p>
<p>When he didn’t elaborate further, In-wook pushed him again. “Just tell me what happened.”</p>
<p>“She took me there. Because I asked her to show me something she liked. That <em>she</em> liked, not what she just pretended to like. I wanted to get to know her… I gave her my coat because she was cold...”</p>
<p>“And then?” In-wook could not help the snap in his voice.</p>
<p>“Then she...distracted me. For a second. And when I turned back around, she was gone. With my car keys and wallet in the pocket. And I was stuck on the lift.”</p>
<p>In-wook rubbed his face with one hand while the other gripped the steering wheel. “Oh my God...”</p>
<p>Hee-jae curled in on himself, just a little.</p>
<p>In-wook couldn’t believe this. “Hee-jae, you have got to stop seeing her.”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>In-wook barked out a laugh. <em>“Why?!</em> Because this woman just left you on top of a mountain in the middle of winter with no keys, coat, or money! Thank God you had your phone on you so you could call me and didn’t freeze to death!”</p>
<p>“I—“</p>
<p>“And that’s just one thing she’s done, lest we forget about all the other times she’s had you crying in my arms.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae flinched and perhaps that was not a kind thing to say, but it was true. “Look, she’s had a rough time—“</p>
<p>“That’s no excuse to be cruel!” In-wook said that in a voice that was just a touch more raised than he meant it to be. He shook his head, heart aching. “I hope you don’t think this is how you treat someone you care about.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae didn’t reply, simply buried his face in In-wook’s coat for the rest of the ride home.</p>
<p>The pianist checked his hands, toes, and nose for frostbite when they got home, as he had done many times in Norway, before sending him up to warm up in the shower.</p>
<p>By the time In-wook got home from the studio the next day, Hee-jae was down and out sick with a cold and a terrible-sounding cough.</p>
<p>In-wook wished he had Jung Geum-ja’s number. He had a few choice words for her.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>In-wook was about ready to scream when the buzzing of his phone on top of the piano interrupted his latest less than satisfactory attempt at the piece his would be playing for Piano in April.</p>
<p>He picked it up without looking at who it was. “What?!” he half shouted.</p>
<p>It was Hee-jae. Who else would it have been? “Ummm…” the man said apprehensively. “I was just calling to ask if you were planning on coming home tonight? If you needed a ride, if you were okay…”</p>
<p>In-wook rubbed a hand over his face, irritation pricking at him. “You could have just texted me.”</p>
<p>“I did. Four times over six hours.”</p>
<p>In-wook blinked.</p>
<p>“You have no idea what time it is, do you?”</p>
<p>The pianist sighed heavily. “Nope.”</p>
<p>“It’s two in the morning.”</p>
<p>In-wook swore, leaning forward to rest his elbows on top of the piano.</p>
<p>“Look, In-wook ah,” Hee-jae said. “Come home. You’re not going to get anywhere when you’re exhausted and frustrated.”</p>
<p>“I suppose you’re right…” In-wook groused unhappily, standing up to gather his music.</p>
<p>“Are you good to drive home?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I’ll be fine. It’ll clear my head out a little.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae hummed on the other end of the line. “I’ll have food for you when you get home.”</p>
<p>“Hee-jae, you don’t—” In-wook made to argue, only to be silenced by a distinctive click on the other end of the line and the silent words <em>I will have food for you and will take great offense if you complain or don’t eat it.</em></p>
<p>As he drove home, frustration and anxiety from the day slowly fading, he wondered what he had done to deserve such a wonderful friend (even if he was a bit of an idiot sometimes).</p>
<p>“You’ve got this,” Hee-jae said as he gave In-wook a pep talk over kimchi and rice at three in the morning. “You weren’t chosen for this role because you’re bad at music.”</p>
<p>“I never said I was bad at music,” In-wook muttered, nibbling at his kimchi. “All I said was, currently, I’m awful at it.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae rolled his eyes. “I’m just going to go right ahead and call bullshit on that. I’ve heard you play. You make that dinky keyboard over there sound like a world class instrument.”</p>
<p>“So how much did you drink?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae gave him a look. “I’m serious, In-wook! Cut yourself a break. You had a bad day, so what. You’ve still got a week to prepare for this.”</p>
<p>In-wook shuddered. “Don’t remind me, just a week? I’m fucked…”</p>
<p>“In-wook ah!” Hee-jae protested before sighing. “Okay, so what you’ve been doing isn’t working.”</p>
<p>“It is not.”</p>
<p>“So go back to the basics. Why did you write it? How did you write it? By sitting there and feeling it out, right?”</p>
<p>In-wook nodded.</p>
<p>“So if analyzing it isn’t working, go back in and feel it out. Don’t even look at the music, you and I both know you don’t need to look at music to play something, especially if you’re the one who wrote it. And just try and get back into the sound of it to get across what you wrote for it to get across. Worth a shot, right?”</p>
<p>In-wook did not reply as he considered it. Yes, maybe it was worth a shot.</p>
<p>Hee-jae smiled at him, his round glasses and freshly washed hair making him look distinctly boyish. “It’s like that English song you like so much. How does it go? Take that rage/put it on a page/take the page to the stage/blow the roof off the place.”</p>
<p>In-wook smiled then. “Not exactly but I suppose…”</p>
<p>“<em>You suppose</em>,” Hee-jae teased. “I’m right and you know it.”</p>
<p>It turned out he was right. In-wook’s producer came in after the first successful run of the song <em>Sunrise, Sunset</em> in many days.</p>
<p>“I don’t know what you did between yesterday and today, but keep doing it because that was excellent.”</p>
<p>In-wook nodded, glancing over at where Seo-woo was beaming at him from the other side of the glass. She gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up. In-wook smiled at her.</p>
<p>A week later saw In-wook pacing back and forth across the floor of their apartment to work out the pre-recital jitters.</p>
<p>“You don’t have to come to both.”</p>
<p>“Well I’m coming to both,” Hee-jae said flatly. “And there’s nothing you can do about it.”</p>
<p>“All right.”</p>
<p>“You’re going to do great.”</p>
<p>“Don’t you dare jinx me.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae laughed.</p>
<p>And then it was nearly show time, and he was fixing his bow tie for the tenth time in his dressing room, saying over and over to himself, <em>I can do this</em>.</p>
<p>His phone buzzed, a text from Hee-jae showing up on the screen.</p>
<p><em>First one here, front and center. Blow the roof off the place!</em> And a string of thumbs up and smiley face emojis, the last one being a heart.</p>
<p>In-wook smiled widely, pounding heart calming ever so slightly.</p>
<p>He wondered briefly if his ex-wife would come. He had thought of mentioning it too her, but ultimately had not. She knew about it, after all, had known about it for a long time now. If she came, she came. If not, well that was to be expected. He found it didn’t actually bother him that much. One more glance at the text from Hee-jae and he stood up, just in time to have his phone buzz once more, from Seo-woo this time.</p>
<p>
  <em>Sold out!</em>
</p>
<p>The brief flash of anxiety that ran through him was quickly replaced with excitement and anticipation. Sold out. His first big performance since his slump and <em>sold out?!</em></p>
<p>As he walked towards the stage, one thing lingered in the back of his mind. Seo-woo had been acting strangely for days. While normally they would chat on breaks and he generally considered her to be a friend, she had suddenly grown quite distant with him, refusing to meet his eyes and seemingly going out of her way to avoid interacting with him outside of her strict work duties.</p>
<p><em>Was it something I said? </em>he wondered, and had even asked her a few days prior if she was all right, only to have her wave him off. <em>Something going on in her life then?</em> He hoped she would tell him after this performance was over. She had been so kind and patient through his divorce, and he would jump at the chance to support her similarly.</p>
<p>He pushed the thoughts aside as he took a deep breath and walked out on stage. <em>Show time</em>.</p>
<p>And was met with…nothing. No one. Just Hee-jae, front and center.</p>
<p>In-wook’s heart broke, just a little.</p>
<p>That was a lie. It fucking <em>shattered.</em></p>
<p>Hee-jae caught his eye and nodded at him encouragingly, but the pained expression on his face could not be hidden.</p>
<p>In-wook shoved away his gut-wrenching disappointment. <em>I’ll play it for you then, Hee-jae</em>, he thought. <em>And at least it’ll be a good recording with no background noise to be edited out.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>A practice round for the later show.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>It’s fine.</em>
</p>
<p>He bit his tongue, blinked the mistiness out of his eyes, and sat down.</p>
<p>He had written the piece as almost a tribute to the twists and turns of his life over the past year, from the agony of his failed marriage to the relative happiness he had found living with his friend (though he had yet to tell Hee-jae part of this song had been written about him). As it turned out, it was perfect that the first part of the piece was meant to be painful and angry, as that was what he felt in that moment.</p>
<p><em>Someone had bought up all the tickets, </em>he realized as he pounded through the notes.</p>
<p>Hee-jae only had one because In-wook had gotten him one for each show, originally with the intention that he could pick which one worked best for him the day of if need be.</p>
<p>
  <em>Someone wanted to humiliate me.</em>
</p>
<p>He had a sense of who it was even before he heard the door open and shut in the back of the hall, even before he saw someone walking down the isle. He had heard the name of the person Seo-woo had been dating, but thought it too great of a coincidence. Plenty of people in Korea had similar names. It was doubtful she was actually dating <em>him</em>. Moon Ha-won. Because Jisoo had left him for Ha-won. So Seo-woo could not possibly have gotten involved with him.</p>
<p>But she had. And it was him. Who else would it have been?</p>
<p>It had only been a matter of time. He had always known that.</p>
<p>In-wook’s fingers slid from the keys under the strength of the man’s stare. In his peripheral vision, he could see Hee-jae looking back and forth between them, utterly dumbfounded.</p>
<p><em>“Sit down!</em>” he heard Hee-jae hiss. <em>“Do you have any idea how rude you’re being?</em>”</p>
<p>In-wook made a half aborted gesture towards him, asking him to give it up. It would not be helpful.</p>
<p>“Why?” Ha-won’s cold voice echoed around the empty concert hall, straight out of In-wook’s nightmares.</p>
<p>The pianist stared at his hands and said nothing.</p>
<p>
  <em>He could remember it. He could remember walking home that day, even though the orders were to shelter in place. It was early, and he chose to chance it, not wanting to stay in school any longer. His mother could yell at him when he got home, but at least he would be home and he could drown his multitude of sorrows in his piano.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Norwegian music blaring in his ears, eyes fixed on the ground, he had not seen the woman approaching him.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Oh! I’m sorry,” the woman said in Korean before quickly repeating it in English.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>In-wook did not know why, but he answered her in Korean, even though he never spoke it. “Excuse me,” he said quickly. They were the first words of Korean he had spoken since he had last spoken to his grandmother the previous summer, an event which had led to both his mother and his grandmother screaming at him for his bad grammar and halting speech.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Oh!” the woman said, pleasantly surprised. “You’re Korean? I didn’t think you spoke Korean, that’s why I never talked to you! Do you go to the international school?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>In-wook understood every word she said. His mother spoke Korean to him at home. It was just that he never spoke it back. He always replied in English. In his mind, he could picture himself saying ‘I am Korean, but I do not speak Korean. I do go to the international school’ but his mind struggled to supply the right words.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>In truth, these were the first words he spoke to anyone but his mother in a number of days. In those days, as a shy, quiet boy who preferred musical instruments to living people, he rarely talked to anyone else.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>In the end, he did not even answer in English, as was his habit. Still a bit stunned, he stayed silent.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Oh you must,” the woman answered for him. “Do you know my son? Moon Ha-won? And why are you out here in this snow? Didn’t they tell you to shelter in place? You should be back at the school, did Ha-won come with you?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Moon Ha-won? Sure, In-wook knew who he was. Another Korean boy growing up in a non-Korean-speaking world. Perhaps they should have been friends, but they weren’t. Something about him had always rubbed In-wook the wrong way (as, honestly, did most people in those days) and besides, his best friend was Jisoo.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Ji-soo…</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>In-wook doubted she understood how much it had meant to him when she helped him pick up his books when he dropped them one day. Such a simple act of kindness, but for In-wook, who at the time had been on the verge of breaking down in tears over feelings of utter loneliness and stress from the day, it had been everything. He had thought to try and befriend her, had harbored a bit of a crush on her even, but ultimately found himself too shy to approach her at that time, even just to say hello. So he left them both alone and knew no more about either of them.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Is Ha-won behind you?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>In-wook blinked as he stared at the woman, two pairs of boots and some gloves clutched in her arms. “Ha-won…is…behind me,” In-wook agreed, stumbling over his words.</em>
</p>
<p><em>“Really? I can’t believe they let you kids leave the school when </em>they<em> ordered the shelter in place.”</em></p>
<p>
  <em>…What?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Then she was bustling past him, thanking him and telling him to hurry home and stay in place next time. He stayed where he was for a long moment after she had gone, a bit frozen and not from the cold. That was the longest conversation he had had in a long time.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>As he continued on his way home, something kept bothering him.</em>
</p>
<p>Is Ha-won behind you?</p>
<p>Ha-won is behind me.</p>
<p>
  <em>Why had he said it like that? What if she misunderstood? He had meant to say Ha-won had stayed behind at school as far as he was aware, but hadn’t quite gotten all the words out. Why hadn’t he just answered in English? But did she even speak English?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He sighed. She would figure it out and maybe he would apologize to her (in English) for his shoddy Korean next time he saw her.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>That was before the snow stared picking up.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>It went from a light flurry to a full whiteout quicker than he thought possible, quicker than he had ever seen it.</em>
</p>
<p><em>And he </em>panicked<em>.</em></p>
<p><em>She was not at her house as he had </em>prayed<em> she would be, so he set out through the snow in the direction of the school as quickly as he could. With the snow accumulating as quickly as he could, that was not very quickly.</em></p>
<p><em>For a brief moment he thought he saw her, just up ahead, but she was gone in the blink of an eye, hidden by the storm. Before long, he too was hopelessly lost in the blizzard. And it was </em>so cold<em>.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>He wandered around aimlessly, hoping he would run into something that he could use to orient himself, but found nothing, nothing, until—</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Boy!” a Norwegian voice shouted, hands grabbing him about the shoulders as they hauled him into their truck. “What are you doing out here? The school reported you missing and so did you mother when you didn’t make it home!”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>In-wook blinked rapidly, the heat of the truck feeling as though it was burning his frozen skin. “A woman,” he panted, shivering from cold and residual terror. “She went the wrong way!” His Norwegian had not been the best then either as he had only lived there for a year. “I went after her!”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He told them everything, where she might have been going, what she had been carrying, what she looked like (though he could not remember very well, he had never seen her before). They searched for her late into the night, when the blizzard became so bad they could go no further.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>They found her the next morning, frozen only a few hundred meters from the school.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>The newspaper reported her death as an accident, citing the boots she had been carrying as belonging to two students at the school near to where she was found. It was an accident.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>In-wook stared at that page for hours every day, replaying over and over again in his mind their brief conversation and whispering the words out loud “Ha-won stayed behind at school. Ha-won stayed behind at school. Everyone else stayed behind at school.” and a thousand permutations of that. If only he had known how to say them when he needed them. He should have, his first language was Korean (but he couldn’t speak it).</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He did not sleep well for years. And he left Norway with Jisoo because he couldn’t stand to look at all the snow.</em>
</p>
<p>“Why?!” Ha-won asked again, voice a bit louder this time.</p>
<p>In-wook slowly shook his head. “What do you want me to say?”</p>
<p>“I want you to admit it.”</p>
<p>“Admit to what?”</p>
<p>Ha-won stared at him. “I want you do admit that you murdered my mother.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, <em>what?” </em>Hee-jae stood up, incredulous and in full lawyer mode, pad of paper already in one hand and a pen in the other. “On what grounds?”</p>
<p>Ha-won turned to look at Hee-jae. “And…you are?”</p>
<p>“His friend. Who happens to be a Song&amp;Kim lawyer. So if you want to accuse him of murder, please. <em>On what grounds.</em>”</p>
<p>Ha-won told him and In-wook shuddered to listen. His account was a bit different than In-wook’s memory of it, but then again he heard it through Jisoo, no doubt, who would likely have drastically misinterpreted everything In-wook had ever said on the matter.</p>
<p>Jisoo…</p>
<p><em>Was it not enough? </em>In-wook wondered, tears in his eyes. <em>To divorce me? To have me take the blame? To take everything but my car and my clothes? You had to ruin my life as well?</em></p>
<p>
  <em>What I did…I made it worse. It may have even been my fault. But murder?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Murder…</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Murderer.</em>
</p>
<p>He was knocked out of his thoughts by a suddens snort from Hee-jae. “I’m sorry, is this a joke?” Hee-jae looked between Ha-won and In-wook. “Is there any truth to this?"</p>
<p>In-wook nodded, bracing himself for losing the only person he really had left in his life. He was expecting a lot. Yelling, anger, disgust. But not…</p>
<p>Laughter.</p>
<p>And Hee-jae <em>burst</em> out laughing, deep hearty laughs that echoed around the concert hall. “Oh my God…” he said, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. <em>“Please</em> file a murder charge. I dare you.”</p>
<p>In-wook stared. <em>What—</em></p>
<p>“And this happened in Norway right? So gotta make sure it’s Norwegian court!Go on, file that charge…if you can find a prosecutor to take it, that is and that is a <em>big</em> if, let me tell you. Also good luck finding a judge who would hear a case based on, and I quote:” Hee-jae looked down at his notes. “A 15 year-old boy speaking a language he doesn’t know to a woman in a snowstorm.”</p>
<p>Ha-won blinked and In-wook stared.</p>
<p>“So go ahead,” Hee-jae was taunting him now. “Try it. File that charge. I’ll beat you with my eyes closed. In fact, I won’t even need to. The judge won’t even have to throw it out because any prosecutor would laugh you out the door, <em>murder…</em>” Hee-jae got in Ha-won’s face. “And then I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll sue you for everything you’ve got for defamation of character and it will be the easiest case I’ve ever won, considering it was no doubt you who pulled this lovely stunt.” He gestured around the hall. “And, what’s your name, Moon Ha-won?” Hee-jae turned to In-wook. “Wasn’t this the guy your ex cheated on you with?”</p>
<p>“Hee-jae—“</p>
<p>The lawyer turned back to Ha-won, a grin plastered on his face. “And you have no chance now. So go on. I dare you.”</p>
<p>Ha-won did not reply.</p>
<p>Hee-jae went on then, every ounce of mirth gone from his voice in the blink of an eye. “If not, then remove yourself from this concert hall. What happened to your mother was a terrible tragedy, but that does not mean you get to blame it on the nearest man you don’t like. You say he ‘killed your mother’ because he hated you? Well I say you’re blaming her accidental death on him because he was married to the woman you loved for 9 years. Am I correct?”</p>
<p>“Hee-jae, enough,” In-wook finally said.</p>
<p>Hee-jae didn’t act as if he’d heard him. “Oh I thought so. That being the case, kindly <em>fuck off</em>.”</p>
<p>To In-wook’s utter shock, Ha-won turned around and left without another word. In-wook watched him go, a sickening mix of relief and despair choking him.</p>
<p>The next thing he knew, he and Hee-jae both were back in his dressing room, Hee-jae holding him by the shoulders as In-wook <em>sobbed</em>.</p>
<p>“In-wook ah,” he said gently but firmly. “Was that all that happened? What he said back there?”</p>
<p>“You don’t believe it?” In-wook got out through his gut-wrenching sobs.</p>
<p>“All I know is you won’t go to jail for anything, not on my watch, but I need to know what they could potentially throw at you. I don’t give a flying fuck what you did at fifteen because I know who you are <em>now</em>, but you have to be honest with me, all right? Is there any truth to that murder accusation?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know…” In-wook got out, shaking his head as his entire world fell down around him. “I don’t know, I don’t know…”</p>
<p>“Tell me what happened then. In your own words.”</p>
<p>In-wook did. How Hee-jae managed to understand him through his tears, he had no idea. In-wook told him <em>everything</em>. Every second of the thing that played out in his nightmares, that his mind still went through over and over again when left in the quiet for too long, every one of his fears that <em>he had</em> caused a woman’s death with his shoddy knowledge of Korean and his refusal to obey the shelter in place order.</p>
<p>Then he was being hauled into Hee-jae’s arms and held tightly.</p>
<p>“That’s not murder, sweetheart,” Hee-jae murmured into his hair. “That’s a language barrier. A language barrier and a terrible accident. One you too barely survived. It’s not your fault.”</p>
<p>In-wook sagged heavily into Hee-jae’s arms, all the energy suddenly gone from his body.</p>
<p>“In-wook?!” Hee-jae asked, a bit alarmed. “Are you okay?”</p>
<p>“Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited to hear that?” In-wook whispered into Hee-jae’s tear-stained shirt. “That it’s not my fault?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae rubbed his back gently. “…That’s what broke you and your wife up.”</p>
<p>In-wook nodded slowly. “She told me…I killed her…because I hated Ha-won. I didn’t even know him then…”</p>
<p>Hee-jae pulled him closer. “It’s not your fault,” he whispered again into In-wook’s hair and kept saying it until the pianist’s sobs quieted.</p>
<p>In-wook stayed there in Hee-jae’s arms long after he stopped crying, soaking up the comfort he had so desperately needed for more than fifteen years. “I don’t know where I’d be…without you…” was all he managed to say.</p>
<p>“And I you,” Hee-jae replied, squeezing him one more time before pulling away. “Now,” he said, a soft smile on his lips. “I’m going to bring you some wet paper towels and you’re going to put them under your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Then you’re going to restart whatever it is you do before a recital, I’m going to go get in line so I can keep my front and center seat, and in…” He glanced at his watch. “Forty-five minutes you’re going to walk out there and blow the roof off this fucking hall, you hear me? Because you’re the best damn pianist in Seoul and you need to show it.”</p>
<p>In-wook snorted, cracking a small smile. “I dispute that.”</p>
<p>“Try.”</p>
<p>In-wook laughed, just a little.</p>
<p>Forty-five minutes later, he did just that. As far as he was concerned, what he produced then may very well have been the best rendition of the song he had ever played. Perhaps that was because the emotions that had created the song —beginning, middle, and end— were all running very high.</p>
<p>
  <em>The best damn pianist, huh?</em>
</p>
<p>When he bowed to the crowd, they rose in a standing ovation. The first he had received since his slump began. He barely saw them though. All he saw was Hee-jae, front and center, clapping wildly and beaming at him.</p>
<p>In-wook smiled, nothing but warmth in his heart.</p>
<p>In-wook soon found even more reasons to be grateful for Hee-jae, namely when he snatched In-wook’s phone out of his hand and held it above his head (very much out of In-wook’s reach, the tall fucking bastard) until he calmed down and agreed not to call his ex-wife.</p>
<p>“You’re already divorced,” Hee-jae reminded a spitting-mad In-wook. “Just let it go. Let <em>her</em> go. Forget about this and move on with your life! Don’t do anything I’ll have to defend you from.”</p>
<p>Eventually, after a lot of yelling, cursing and embarrassing jumping to reach the phone, In-wook agreed.</p>
<p>(Late the following night, In-wook held the phone in his hand, thumb over the call button on her contact, but ultimately he did not press it. Why? Because Hee-jae was right. What would talking to Jisoo really accomplish but dredge up more pain?)</p>
<p>He other person he had yet to speak to was Seo-woo.</p>
<p>“In-wook shi—“</p>
<p>In-wook set down his bag when he walked into the studio that day, not looking at her. “I thought we were friends.”</p>
<p>“I—“</p>
<p>“I considered us to be friends.”</p>
<p>She was crying, her head bowed. “I’m sorry… I didn’t know he was going to do that! I encouraged him to confr— to talk to you, but I didn’t know he was going to do it like that!”</p>
<p>“And you didn’t think to <em>ask</em> me for my side of the story?”</p>
<p>“Would you have answered?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” In-wook said sternly, biting down on his anger and pain. “Yes, if you accused me of <em>murder</em> I would have.”</p>
<p>“But what you said—“</p>
<p>“Do you even care to hear my side?”</p>
<p>She did so he told her and by the end she was near tears. “I didn’t know…what really happened…”</p>
<p>She told him how Ha-won had found out. He had come by letters Jisoo had written to Ha-won’s <em>sister</em> (In-wook felt sick, how long had she been unfaithful?), and those letters had made it sound like In-wook had put his hands around the woman’s neck and strangled her. They were overblown. Baseless.</p>
<p>She had not listened to a word he said past the name ‘Ha-won’.</p>
<p>Oh and she was going to <em>forgive</em> him, was she? How kind of her.</p>
<p>How dare she…</p>
<p>For the first time in his life, In-wook wondered why he married her.</p>
<p>Seo-woo and In-wook sat in silence for a long time.</p>
<p>Finally, In-wook spoke. “Let me give you a piece of advice, Seo-woo ah. Take what you’ve learned here and think long and hard about about your own relationship. Because I was with Kim Jisoo for fifteen years and Moon Ha-won stuck around for every single one of them, waiting for her. Or being with her. I don’t have any proof that she slept with him while she was married to me but at the bare minimum she was having an emotional affair and considering she was writing letters to his <em>sister</em>, I can draw my own conclusions.”</p>
<p>“So?”</p>
<p>“Ask yourself how secure you feel with such a man. It’s your decision, but if you’ll take my advice, no one comes between them. Not you, and not me.”</p>
<p>He took the rest of the day off. By the time Hee-jae got home, In-wook was piss drunk on the floor.</p>
<p>If he spent the night on the couch with Hee-jae, head in his lap and face buried in his soft sweater, what of it?</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>The last person he was expecting to see again was Moon Ha-won, and certainly not the next day, barging into his studio. In-wook didn’t remember much of the actual encounter, just a blurred memory of being shoved and banged against the wall, of Ha-won shouting at him to keep his poison out of Seo-woo’s ears, and of falling to the floor, his head hurting very badly where it had smacked against the wall.</p>
<p>He heard shouting, two women, and then a muffled voice asking him if he was all right.</p>
<p>The next thing he knew, he was in the emergency room with a concussion, five stitches in his head, and a social worker asking him if he wanted to press charges. At first he shook his head (bad idea), and then verbalized “no”. His voice was more than a little slurred as he said it.</p>
<p>When they asked who they could call, he said Hee-jae.</p>
<p>The lawyer was <em>livid </em>as he drove In-wook home, ranting about pressing charges even after In-wook told him no.</p>
<p>“Just drop it, okay?” In-wook said, swaying badly in Hee-jae arms as they made their way to the apartment.</p>
<p>Hee-jae did, with an overblown sigh.</p>
<p>He spent the rest of the night by In-wook’s side, nudging him whenever he started to fall asleep and sitting next to him in the bathroom as nausea kept him hunched over the toilet bowl until the wee hours of the morning.</p>
<p>“Nope,” Hee-jae said for the millionth time, poking him under the ribs. “We are not falling asleep. No comas tonight, thank you.”</p>
<p>“Thank you...” In-wook breathed, utterly miserable.</p>
<p>“Whoever would eat all my cooking and provide background music if not you, In-wook ah?”</p>
<p>In-wook had never felt such warmth in his heart.</p>
<p>The whole situation ended much differently than In-wook would have ever expected. Ha-won ultimately came to <em>him</em> and formally apologized, offering to pay his hospital bill which In-wook accepted (despite Hee-jae saltily telling him not to, that he could pay it easily enough. But that wasn’t the point).</p>
<p>In return, In-wook apologized for the part he had played in the <em>accidental</em> death of his mother, and for not coming forward and saying what had happened at the time (Hee-jae had been pissed about that too, <em>don’t apologize!</em> You did nothing wrong!) but it lifted the weight off In-wook’s heart.</p>
<p>Ha-won accepted and they shook hands, agreeing never to see each other again.</p>
<p>Seo-woo had been there too, looking penitent and troubled. In-wook would buy her a coffee next week, eager to put this whole mess far behind him.</p>
<p>Jisoo was there as well. She tried to talk to him, but In-wook would not have it.</p>
<p>“I have nothing to say to you,” he said simply and cooly, cutting off whatever she had been going to say. “We divorced for a reason, and I have no desire to have any further contact with you at this time.”</p>
<p>When he left, he did not turn around.</p>
<p>“Spoken like a true lawyer,” Hee-jae complimented him with a smirk as they walked back to the car.</p>
<p>In-wook gave no reply, the soft weepings of his ex-wife behind him making his heart ache.</p>
<p>She may not have loved him, but he had loved her. So much. And this...this would never stop hurting.</p>
<p>For a bit though after that, In-wook dared think things might lighten up.</p>
<p>He was wrong. Oh, how he was wrong.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>Hee-jae had told him he’d be home for dinner. In-wook grabbed takeout on his way home from the studio and ran scales on the keyboard, waiting for Hee-jae to get home. But he didn’t get home. In fact, In-wook didn’t see him, barely heard from him beyond a ‘<em>something came up’</em> text, for two days after that.</p>
<p>When In-wook finally did see him again, Hee-jae was a mess.</p>
<p>It was hardly the first time In-wook had come home to find his friend hammered drunk and half passed out on the kitchen table. In-wook sighed quietly as he took in the sight of the liquor bottles, spills, and mess of a roommate. He set his bag down by the door and sat down beside Hee-jae.</p>
<p>“Are you okay?” he asked gently, running his fingers through Hee-jae’s hair.</p>
<p>His friend shook his head, not looking up.</p>
<p>“What happened?”</p>
<p>“My client murdered someone,” he mumbled into his arms. “A girl. A girl I was supposed to help. I was supposed to get her out, get her to England but…but <em>she</em> convinced her to stay. And now she’s dead.”</p>
<p>She. Geum-ja, no doubt.</p>
<p>In-wook kept up the gentle motions of his hand. “You did the best you could.”</p>
<p>“I should have done better.”</p>
<p>Well did In-wook know that feeling. Painfully so, did he know it. “It’s not your fault.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae simply shook his head. “And now…and now we have to <em>defend</em> him…And we’re good. We’re really <em>fucking</em> good and he’s not gonna get half the punishment he deserves…<em>because of us….</em>”</p>
<p>In-wook stood and took his friend under the arms. “Come on, let’s get you to bed.”</p>
<p>“It’s early still.”</p>
<p>“When exactly was the last time you slept?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae made no further comment.</p>
<p>In-wook peeled him out of his clothes down to his pants and undershirt before pouring him into bed. He sat down on the edge of the bed, rubbing Hee-jae’s back. “Hee-jae ah?”</p>
<p>“Mm?”</p>
<p>In-wook chose his next words carefully. “Have you ever…considered quitting?”</p>
<p>His friend glanced at him. “Quitting?”</p>
<p>In-wook nodded. “It’s just…your work doesn’t seem to make you very happy anymore. You’re a brilliant lawyer, you could work at any firm you wanted, doing work you want to do.”</p>
<p>“That’s why I’m working at Song&amp;Kim.”</p>
<p>In-wook raised an eyebrow. “Because you want to or because it’s the best?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae rolled back over and said no more, and In-wook knew he had touched a nerve. He let his friend be for the rest of the night.</p>
<p>As he made himself dinner, In-wook pondered Hee-jae’s situation. Despite living with him for the better part of a year, In-wook still did not know very much about his job or his family beyond a few comments made about his coworkers, the mess with his ex, and his drawn face whenever he would come home from seeing his father. From that, In-wook gathered Hee-jae did not have a good relationship with his family. And while In-wook did not know much about law, he could extrapolate that a family of judges (google could tell him that much) with the odd two defense attorneys might have to work through a lot of tension. Which was probably why Hee-jae was so averse to leaving Song&amp;Kim. To prove a point maybe?</p>
<p>Pride had definitely always been a sticking point for Hee-jae.</p>
<p>In-wook shook his head and poured his noodles into a bowl.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>While Hee-jae did not make a habit of discussing his work with In-wook, it was more than obvious that the murder trial was taking a toll on him. And, from a few other things he mentioned, it seemed like his position in the law firm may have been in jeopardy as well.</p>
<p>In-wook asked him once if everything was all right at work, only to be brushed off, so he let Hee-jae be for the most part, supporting him in whatever other ways he could. Making dinner, running errands for him, whatever he could do.</p>
<p>One evening a few weeks later, In-wook had been lounging on the couch reading when the door suddenly slammed open and then shut.</p>
<p>“Hee-jae ah?” he asked sitting up to be met with an absolutely <em>furious </em>friend. And a hyperventilating one. “Hee-jae,” he said again, standing up. “Come on, deep breaths.”</p>
<p>His friend had dropped his bag on the floor and was standing in the middle of the entryway, face buried in his hands. Carefully, In-wook approached him and rested a hand on his shoulder and another on his sternum.</p>
<p>“Deep breaths.”</p>
<p>“Fuck!” Hee-jae swore loudly, but he didn’t push In-wook away. “Fucking….<em>fuck!”</em></p>
<p>In-wook loosened his tie, patting his shoulder gently as Hee-jae calmed down enough to speak. “What happened?”</p>
<p>His friend shook his head. “I don’t even know,” he whispered. “This life, this fucking <em>mess</em>, is there such thing as an honest business anymore?”</p>
<p>He was eventually able to organize his thoughts enough to tell In-wook what had happened. Not that the actual details were necessary, as most of them went over In-wook’s head anyway (he did music not…all of that), but the main point was remarkably simple: Hee-jae’s father had been thrown under the bus and was in a great deal of trouble.</p>
<p>“And I don’t know…” Hee-jae seethed over a glass of water (he had asked for whiskey, though he hadn’t seemed to notice that that was not what In-wook gave him yet). “If she was involved, directly or indirectly, but she still didn’t fucking <em>tell me</em> until I said <em>all that shit</em> and only then did she bother to share this terrible mess and tell me to fix it if I could but it might already be too late?”</p>
<p>She. Geum-ja, no doubt.</p>
<p>Hee-jae really had horrible taste in women.</p>
<p>“How can I help?” In-wook asked, resting a hand over his friend’s.</p>
<p>Hee-jae snorted sadly. “Unless you suddenly got a law degree since we last spoke, I don’t think there’s anything you can do.”</p>
<p>In-wook nodded. “I didn’t think so, but if any of you need little things done —food, errands, that sort of thing— let me know.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae shook his head, regarding the pianist curiously. “You baffle me,” he said. “You’re always so willing to help, even people you barely know, on top of everything you have going on in your own life, how do you do it? Why do you do it?”</p>
<p>In-wook blinked. “I do it because it’s you,” he said honestly. “Because I can hardly forget I would be a homeless former musician or in jail on a bullshit murder charge without you rather than a well-known pianist with a myriad of opportunities. So helping you when you need it is really not that much trouble.”</p>
<p>An odd look passed over Hee-jae’s face. “Who knew lending my couch to a sad man in a bar would buy me such loyalty,” he murmured, turning his hand under In-wook’s to lace their fingers together.</p>
<p>In-wook thought to say something, do something though he didn’t know what exactly, but Hee-jae’s phone beat him to it and his friend was off talking to his brother, trying to figure out what the hell they were going to do.</p>
<p>In-wook’s palm was warm where Hee-jae’s hand had been.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>Judges, apparently, made a great deal of money as well. That or Hee-jae’s family was, in general, just independently wealthy.</p>
<p>Hee-jae had called him earlier and asked if he would be able to bring food to his father’s house, as the man did not have much and Hee-jae couldn’t get away. In-wook was, of course, more than happy to, though he couldn’t say he expected to be directed to one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Seoul to drop it off.</p>
<p>At least he had happened to put on his nicer coat today (hell, he would feel underdressed walking through here in his tuxedo).</p>
<p>Hee-jae’s relieved face when he opened the door to see In-wook was worth his mild discomfort.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” he said, leaning against the doorframe and nearly beaming at the pianist, though he didn’t invite him inside.</p>
<p>In-wook did not think anything of it at first. He was after all only there to drop off food.</p>
<p>“Not a problem,” he said, returning his friend’s smile. “How are you all doing?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae shook his head. “Well, I’m going to be representing him. I spoke to my old…friend the prosecutor but there’s nothing he can do…or perhaps nothing he will do but then again I suppose I can hardly ask him to get disbarred for this… Other than that—“</p>
<p>“Hee-jae?”</p>
<p>In-wook frowned, watching as all the color drained out of his friend’s face and a older man appeared behind him.</p>
<p>“I thought I told you to leave, and now you’ve brought more people over?”</p>
<p>“Dad, he’s not staying, he just brought us food—“</p>
<p>“Out of everything going on, you want to pile <em>this</em> on our family as well?”</p>
<p>In-wook had kept his eyes downcast so as not to intrude any more, though his ears did prick at such an odd statement.</p>
<p>Tightly, painfully, Hee-jae said again, “He’s just a friend. A friend who was kind enough to bring us something to eat because there is nothing here.”</p>
<p>The man turned and retreated back into the apartment without another word, and Hee-jae stepped outside, shutting the door behind him.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” he whispered, not meeting In-wook’s eyes.</p>
<p>In-wook merely shrugged. “He must be under a great deal of stress. I myself wasn’t always kind when I was going through my divorce. Think nothing of it, I took no offense.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae nodded, taking the bag of food from In-wook.</p>
<p>The pianist caught his friend by the hand before Hee-jae could go. “Call me if you need anything else. I’m serious, okay?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae gave him a small smile and squeezed In-wook’s hand.</p>
<p>Later that night, In-wook awoke to his buzzing phone on the coffee table.</p>
<p>“Hee-jae ah?” he said when he picked up, only to be met with silence. Frowning, he asked again. “Hee-jae?” and then a few seconds later “Are you okay?”</p>
<p>Finally, his friend responded. “I’m…” he broke off, voice sounding hoarse and pained. “I’m at the hospital.”</p>
<p>In-wook had his coat and keys in hand in an instant. “Which hospital?” he said, nearly flying out the door. “Are you hurt or—“</p>
<p>“My father…” Hee-jae’s voice shook badly. “<em>Tried to commit suicide…</em>”</p>
<p>“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>In his darkest moments, both after the accident in Norway and during his divorce, In-wook would not lie and try to say he did not consider suicide. As such, he understood well enough what might drive someone to walk into oncoming traffic, having just learned your life as you knew it was gone forever.</p>
<p>But to do so in front of your own child, looking him in the eye as you did it…</p>
<p>Well, such thinking did not help Hee-jae where he was now, shivering from shock, wrapped in In-wook’s coat and leaning on the pianist’s shoulder as they waited for word of how the surgery went. In-wook had an arm around him and was drawing mindless patterns on his friend’s back, humming random tunes as they came to him. Trying to be some sort of a calming, supportive presence or even just a presence. Whatever would help him.</p>
<p>Hee-jae’s brother gave him an odd, faintly displeased look when he saw them, but for the life of him In-wook couldn’t reckon why. Nor did he really care, for that matter. He was here for Hee-jae, and if indiscriminately judging random people made his brother feel better in the wake of his father’s attempted suicide, then for the moment In-wook was fine with that.</p>
<p>Hee-jae though was apparently not.</p>
<p>“Do you have nothing else to do?” his friend finally snapped at his brother. “Except stare at me? Shouldn’t you be calling the family like you said you would? Or are you only good for blaming and judging others?”</p>
<p>In-wook briefly squeezed Hee-jae’s shoulder, hoping it would remind him that shouting at his brother would not fix this. That was before his brother left and Hee-jae slumped back down in his seat, whispering how no one else in his family had even tried to do anything, hadn’t even bothered to call.</p>
<p>Hadn’t even bothered to care.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” In-wook whispered, rubbing his back, suddenly very grateful for his ex-wife. They might not be on good terms, but at least he never doubted that if something happened to him, he could call her and she would come, even despite everything that had happened. “I’m not going anywhere,” he murmured. “As long as you need me, I’ll be here, okay? Whatever you need.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae had his face buried in his hand, but he nodded.</p>
<p>Hee-jae’s father had been in surgery for six hours when In-wook left for five minutes —<em>five minutes—</em> to get them both coffee. Of course it was then that she decided to show up.</p>
<p>In-wook had been expecting she might, and had been keeping an eye out to chase her away if she decided to show. As far as he knew, Hee-jae hadn’t called her, but the story had been all over the news and she might very well have seen it.</p>
<p>As far as In-wook was concerned, if Hee-jae wanted to see her he would have called, and since he had not, she needed to get the hell out. Especially if she wasn’t going to try and support him, which by the even tenser line of Hee-jae’s shoulder In-wook reckoned she was not here for him.</p>
<p>He handed Hee-jae his coffee, which his friend took tiredly, and nodded to the woman.</p>
<p>“Has there been any news?” he asked Hee-jae and his friend shook his head, not looking up at him.</p>
<p>Geum-ja gave him a look of profound dislike (which under any other circumstances In-wook would have found to be intolerably hilarious) and turned back to Hee-jae, about to say something, before Hee-jae’s brother came flying in.</p>
<p>“He’s out of surgery! The surgeon is coming out to speak with us!”</p>
<p>Hee-jae quickly handed his phone to In-wook with a brief “Hold this?” before hurrying after his brother.</p>
<p>In-wook sighed heavily as he watched them go, sending up a silent prayer that it would be good news, before turning to the woman. “You must be Jung Geum-ja.”</p>
<p>“Heard of me, have you?”</p>
<p>In-wook might have been a little pre-biased, but he already didn’t like her. “Unfortunately.”</p>
<p>The woman snorted at him. “And you, Kang In-wook, are every bit as pleasant as everyone says you are.”</p>
<p>“So happy I don’t disappoint. Now, was there something you needed?”</p>
<p>She straightened her back. “I came to offer my…sympathies and to see if I could help.”</p>
<p>“I’ll let you know.”</p>
<p>Her eye twitched briefly. “And who decided it would be you taking this...position?”</p>
<p>She really was unbelievable. In-wook held up Hee-jae’s phone. “Just worked out that way I suppose. Now, that conversation that’s going on in there is bound to be heavy no matter the results, so it might be best for you to go and give them some privacy. I can call you with an update later if you’re concerned.”</p>
<p>She did not honestly appear to be so. “I’ll stick around if you don’t mind. I need to talk to him.”</p>
<p>“Well I very much doubt either of us will be seeing much of him for the rest of the night, so it’s best if you go.”</p>
<p>“I get the distinct feeling you don’t like me, In-wook shi.”</p>
<p>God. In-wook leaned forward. “My opinions are my own, and my opinion is that right now, the only thing that matters is whatever they need. In a time of crisis like this, Hee-jae and his family need someone reliable.”</p>
<p>“And I’m not?”</p>
<p>In-wook <em>laughed</em>. “Listen, I’m not interested in getting involved in other people’s relationships, but considering I got a phone call at two in the morning last winter to come pick him up on top of the mountain because you stranded him without a coat or wallet for shits and giggles, no. You’re not. And from all the other times I’ve had to help clean up the mess you dumped in his lap, I can gather that you are absolutely not the person he needs right now. Especially since that definitely sounded like <em>work</em> you were trying to talk to him about when I came up here, as his father is undergoing major surgery to decide life and death. So please—“</p>
<p>“In-wook!”</p>
<p>The pianist turned, his friend coming out. “He survived,” Hee-jae panted, looking a bit pale. “But they won’t know anything more until he wakes up…” His friend choked, just a little. “If he wakes up, that is…”</p>
<p>In-wook hugged him and Hee-jae melted into his arms. “When can you see him?”</p>
<p>“Soon. We’re going up there now. To ICU.” He pulled back, still not looking at Geum-ja as he shrugged off his coat. “Can you hold this? We have to put on a bunch of stuff to go see him.”</p>
<p>“Of course,” In-wook said, reaching for the coat when Hee-jae suddenly jerked back.</p>
<p>“Oh my God, is that the time?"</p>
<p>In-wook glanced at his watch.</p>
<p>“You have to get to work!”</p>
<p>Ahh. In-wook shook his head. “I texted my manager I won’t be in today.”</p>
<p>“But—“</p>
<p>In-wook snatched the coat from Hee-jae and pointed to the stairs he brother had disappeared up. “Hush, and go see your father. I’ll be up in the waiting room in a sec.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae nodded, just a touch of a smile on his lips, before he too disappeared.</p>
<p>In-wook turned back to Geum-ja. “And that is how you support someone. Take notes if you have to. Now I don’t know how or if you’re involved in this shit, nor do I rightly care, but clean up your own mess and while you’re at it, kindly fuck off.”</p>
<p>With that, he turned and followed the other two men up the stairs.</p>
<p><em>That,</em> In-wook thought as he dozed in the freezing ICU waiting room, covered in both his and Hee-jae’s coats, <em>felt good.</em></p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>The first time it had happened, In-wook nearly had a heart attack.</p>
<p>Hee-jae’s brother was apparently staying the night at the hospital one particular evening, giving Hee-jae the opportunity to make it home and at least shower, maybe get some sleep. And sleep he did. In-wook could only guess when he had last gotten any at all, as his friend had rolled in the door, into the shower, and then immediately into bed, unconscious before his head hit the pillow.</p>
<p>In-wook was glad to see it, and used the opportunity to snag a few hours himself.</p>
<p>Only to be awakened not long after by an absolutely bloodcurdling scream.</p>
<p>In-wook was up the stairs before he was even fully awake, having no real idea who made that sound or why, but it couldn’t be good and he was more than willing to fight somebody if need be—</p>
<p>Instead of any intruder or would-be murder, all he found when he reached the top of the stairs was Hee-jae, sitting bolt upright in his bed, face buried in his hands as his breath came with a shaky stutter.</p>
<p>In-wook gave himself a moment to let the adrenaline boil down in his own blood before he spoke. “Hee-jae ah,” he panted. “You scared me.” He moved to sit next to him on the bed. “Are you okay?”</p>
<p>“Fine,” his friend got out, not looking at him. “Sorry.”</p>
<p>Except he clearly wasn’t fine, because the same thing happened again the next two nights, scaring the ever living shit out of In-wook each time.</p>
<p>Nightmares they were, no doubt. And who could blame him, having nearly watched his father die violently right in front of him. Each time, heart pounding in his chest as he took deep breaths to calm it, In-wook pondered if he should check on his friend or not. He did not want to intrude, didn’t want to push him if he didn’t want to talk, but… But how could he just sit there and do nothing while his friend was suffering?</p>
<p>He went, every time.</p>
<p>And the third night, after Hee-jae had calmed down enough from his nightmare, his friend finally reached out and caught In-wook by the hand before he could leave.</p>
<p>Quietly, almost inaudibly, Hee-jae whispered, “Stay?”</p>
<p>In-wook stayed without a second thought, slid beneath the covers and let his friend burrow his face in his chest.</p>
<p>“I just…keep <em>seeing it</em>…” Hee-jae whispered into In-wook’s t-shirt. “Over and over…”</p>
<p>The pianist stroked his hair soothingly. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae, still exhausted from the ongoing ordeal, fell asleep quickly in In-wook’s arms and, thankfully, stayed that way. In-wook though stayed awake late into the night, thinking about many things, the man in his arms chief among them.</p>
<p>From then on, as with most things in their arrangement, things simply changed and neither man acknowledged it, merely excepted it as it was now. In-wook spent his nights in Hee-jae’s bed, his friend wrapped securely in his arms, as the man would be relentlessly plagued by nightmares of his father’s attempted suicide otherwise. In-wook didn’t complain, happy enough to finally have a bed to sleep in again.And he couldn’t…say he minded it. Waking up with someone beside him again that is, even if it was just Hee-jae. Perhaps that was odd. He couldn’t find it within himself to care. What they did was their business and no one else’s.</p>
<p>The days went on and In-wook did everything he could to support his friend, worrying more than a little about the dullness in his eyes and the exhaustion that always seemed to permeate his every move.</p>
<p>And Hee-jae just could not manage to catch a break.</p>
<p>A day came when Hee-jae did not pick up In-wook’s calls, nor did he text him as he normally would when he couldn’t pick up. In-wook made sure he was home before Hee-jae that day, fearing what his friend might have to tell him when he got home.</p>
<p>In truth, he had been expecting to hear that Hee-jae’s father had passed away. That was not what happened.</p>
<p>When Hee-jae got home, he was well and truly wrung out.</p>
<p>“I lost my job,” he replied dully to In-wook’s question. “And I’m probably going to be disbarred.”</p>
<p>“For what?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae shook his head, a look of bitterness passing over his face. “Geum-ja.”</p>
<p>In-wook had been trying to break Hee-jae of his habit of drinking himself into a stupor whenever he got upset, especially after his friend brought home a report of his blood numbers following a routine checkup showing less-than-stellar liver function for a man his age. For that, though, In-wook got out the whiskey.</p>
<p>Hee-jae barely touched more than a glass of it before he took In-wook by the hand and pulled him up to bed.</p>
<p>“What can I do?” In-wook asked quietly.</p>
<p>“Just don’t leave. Please.”</p>
<p>In-wook nodded against the top of his friend’s head, holding him tightly as Hee-jae buried his face in In-wook’s throat.</p>
<p>Had the pianist elected to look at the feelings brewing around his heart (feelings that had been there for a time prior to that moment if he was honest), he would have recognized them easily. But he did not look at them. Now was not the time for that. His own feelings were not important.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>The morning of the hearing, In-wook drove Hee-jae to the Bar Association headquarters, holding his hand the entire time as his friend sat slumped in his seat, staring down at his lap.</p>
<p>In-wook had spent many hours in the days leading up to the hearing trying to convince his friend to tell the truth about what had happened.</p>
<p>“You said three times now that you’re probably going to get disbarred no matter what you say, right?” In-wook prompted and Hee-jae nodded dully. “So why not tell the truth?”</p>
<p>His friend only shrugged.</p>
<p>In-wook drew up every ounce of patience he could muster and tried again. “I know you loved her, Hee-jae. But she made her own choices. You should not be held accountable for those choices.”</p>
<p>“We’ve already worked out what we’re going to say,” Hee-jae replied flatly. “That’s all there is to it.”</p>
<p>Eventually In-wook had gotten more details out of him about what had happened. Their boss had reported them for inappropriate conduct, and Hee-jae’s best friend since law school had been forced to testify in the case. The only difference was, he had told the truth. And immediately following, had replaced both Hee-jae and Geum-ja as a partner lawyer at Song&amp;Kim.</p>
<p>No wonder Hee-jae clung so tightly to him at night. His family and his friends had all but abandoned him or hung him out to dry.</p>
<p>In-wook couldn’t do a damn thing about it save hold him, support him, as best he could.</p>
<p>One of those nights, In-wook had woken up from a dead sleep to the sound of Hee-jae weeping softly, the neck of his t-shirt damp with tears. His friend had been whispering almost inaudibly to himself.</p>
<p>“Please don’t go. Please don’t leave.”</p>
<p>How In-wook had wanted to shush him, wipe the tears from his face and promise him he would never leave, not unless Hee-jae asked him to go, but in the end he judged it better to pretend to remain asleep, not wanting to embarrass him. As Hee-jae slowly cried himself back to sleep, In-wook’s soul had ached to high heaven.</p>
<p>In-wook pulled up in front of the building, putting the car into park. “I’ll be here when you get out,” he said carefully.</p>
<p>Hee-jae merely nodded, not meeting his eyes.</p>
<p>On an impulse, In-wook reached out and grabbed his hand before he could get out of the car. Squeezing it firmly, he gave Hee-jae what he hoped was a reassuring smile.</p>
<p>His friend squeezed it back before he left.</p>
<p><em>I won’t leave unless you want me to</em>, In-wook thought again as he watched him walk away.</p>
<p>
  <em>God, I hope you never want me to.</em>
</p>
<p>He sat back heavily in his seat and turned on his car.</p>
<p>He’d only just barely known Hee-jae a year, and already his friendship with him felt more fulfilling than half of In-wook’s marriage.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>In-wook, as he had said, was not one to involve himself in other people’s relationships. It was simply not his business.</p>
<p>That said, In-wook found it hard to believe that Hee-jae could find no other employment other than working with <em>Jung Geum-ja?</em></p>
<p>Secretly, In-wook had been relieved Hee-jae was out of what was plainly a toxic work environment at Song&amp;Kim. While it was terrible how his time there had ended, In-wook hoped he could find less stressful, more fulfilling work.</p>
<p>But alas.</p>
<p>Hee-jae looked at him almost accusingly over dinner, having just told him of his new work prospects and been more than a little pissed given In-wook’s lack of response beyond “I’m so glad you found work”.</p>
<p>“You don’t like it.”</p>
<p>“Like I said,” In-wook replied, not looking up from his dinner. “I’m glad you found work again.”</p>
<p>“You don’t like <em>her</em>.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know her.”</p>
<p>“Don’t lie!”</p>
<p>“What I don’t like is getting involved in other people’s relationships.”</p>
<p>“Why don’t you like her?”</p>
<p><em>God</em>. In-wook put down his chopsticks. “Why don’t I like her? I don’t like how she treats you.”</p>
<p>“And how exactly does she treat me?”</p>
<p>In-wook could have kicked himself for taking the bait. He did not want to do this now, not with the impending decision on Hee-jae’s disbarment still hanging over their heads, and his father’s trial coming up soon as well. (The man, Hee-jae had said, was not cooperating. Not at all).</p>
<p>But, it seemed, they were doing this now.</p>
<p>“My favorite example is how she stranded you on top of a mountain in the middle of winter in the middle of the night with no coat and no wallet for a laugh. I...don’t think I should have to go on from there.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae looked pained, but that pain was quickly morphing into anger. “Go on.”</p>
<p>In-wook sighed. “Fine, may I speak plainly to you?”</p>
<p>“Sure.”</p>
<p>In-wook took a breath. “First I just wanna say, I’m only saying this because I wish someone had said it to me before I spent nine years married to the wrong person, because as much as I liked to pull the wool over my own eyes back then and say I was blindsided by her behavior, I had my doubts about marrying her from the very beginning.”</p>
<p>“Spit it out.”</p>
<p>“She doesn’t love you.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae flinched. Hard. “She does.”</p>
<p>“Does she? Does she really?”</p>
<p>“She does!”</p>
<p>In-wook shook his head. “A funny way she has of showing it then. In the past month alone, she got you involved in that murder trial where you’ve borne a ton of the guilt for a terrible thing she did, she got you fired from your job, she brought you under the scrutiny of the bar association for her own career advancement which by the way, have you even thought about how working with her is going to affect your case? <em>And</em> she withheld information about your family member from you!”</p>
<p>Hee-jae trembled. “It was necessary.”</p>
<p>Fucking— “Okay fine. For the sake of argument, sure. How about when we first met then? She had just dated you for three months and made you fall in love with her for the sole purpose of stealing information and didn’t even bother to break up with you before blindsiding you in court and nearly getting you reprimanded? Not to mention that stunt she pulled hiding from a coworker which, genders reversed, no one would question as blatant sexual harassment! Which other times she threatened your reputation and career for her own personal gain am I forgetting?”</p>
<p>There were tears in Hee-jae’s eyes. “But...but all the little things. You can’t fake all the little things.”</p>
<p>“Yes you can,” In-wook said, suddenly so very sad. “Sometimes those are the easiest things to fake.” He sighed, looking away. “Listen, Hee-jae ah, I know you’re in pain. These past few months have been real torture, but looking for comfort in the wrong places is not going to make it hurt any less. Take it from someone who knows—“</p>
<p>At the drop of a hat, Hee-jae was shouting at him. “She does love me! I know she does!”</p>
<p>“Then she doesn’t love you enough.” In-wook hated to see Hee-jae so utterly crushed. “Let me ask you this then, how do you see this moving forward? Because unless you can say right here and right now that you are 100% content with the way your relationship is, you have to think moving forward.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae did not reply.</p>
<p>“Are you happy with the way she treats you? Would <em>you</em> show love to someone the way she claims she shows it to you?”</p>
<p>“She’s had a rough life.”</p>
<p>In-wook barely restrained himself from yelling. “That does not give her license to torment you! What are you thinking is going to happen, Hee-jae, hmm? Are you truly <em>happy</em> with this barebones ‘affection’ she’s giving you? The hours you’ve spent crying in my arms tell me otherwise!”</p>
<p>“You didn’t have to do it if it bothered you so much.”</p>
<p><em>You literal child.</em> “That’s not the point, Hee-jae ah.” In-wook rubbed his eyes. “My point is that she is not going to suddenly wake up one morning and stop treating you like this. People do not change like that no matter how much we want them to. Believe me. I spent 15 years with someone hoping she would one day wake up and no longer be in love with her ex but it just doesn’t happen!”</p>
<p>“She is not you ex and this is not your marriage!” Hee-jae fired back.</p>
<p>“You’re right, it’s not, but you’ve already tried telling her how her behavior makes you feel, and she did not care. Straight up, she did not care. And she has come out and told you that she is not interested in a romantic relationship with you, only in using you like you offered. And that’s what she’s been doing. Using you. It’s not going to change, and it’s not going to get better, and I don’t want to see you go down this path of a long relationship that makes you utterly miserable!”</p>
<p>“You’re jealous.”</p>
<p>In-wook was...utterly dumbfounded. “What?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae did not repeat himself. In fact, he looked more than a little bit sick. He was gone before In-wook could get out another word.</p>
<p>He didn’t come home that night. In-wook knew because he stayed awake on the couch all night waiting for the soft click of the door that signaled his friend was home safe (he couldn’t sleep on the couch anymore, he realized, after weeks of sharing a bed with Hee-jae).</p>
<p>
  <em>Jealous?</em>
</p>
<p>In-wook snorted and shook his head.</p>
<p><em>Of her? Of that relationship? Hardly</em>.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>For a good bit after that, Hee-jae and In-wook functioned as no more than roommates, all of their close and affectionate habits vanishing in the blink of an eye. It pained In-wook, but he wasn’t going to apologize. He had not said anything that wasn’t true, and he had said it all as kindly as it could be said. Hee-jae would just have to figure out the rest himself. If he wanted to avoid In-wook while doing it, that was fine. All it meant was that In-wook was right.</p>
<p>A lot of things happened in the time they weren’t really speaking. Hee-jae’s father took the fall for things he didn’t do, Hee-jae’s uncle went to jail for obstruction of justice and a myriad of other things, the legitimate disbarment case got dropped for unknown reasons and apparently Geum-ja got stabbed.</p>
<p>And no, In-wook was not so terrible and petty a person as to wish death on someone just because he didn’t like them.</p>
<p>In-wook on the other hand spent so much time in the studio, his manager decided he liked him again and he managed to write what Seo-woo said would be the next big hit. (He had taken the time to patch things up with her, tell her the story of what had happened from his point of view, and to extend to her then off again boyfriend (Jisoo, she agreed, never did wholly vanish) that In-wook held no ill will towards him, as it appeared he had been strongly misled).</p>
<p>In-wook hated every second of that song though. It was angry and painful, stressful to play. One guess on what it was based off of.</p>
<p>And stronger than everything was the sense of how much he missed Hee-jae. Because In-wook missed him a lot.</p>
<p>He sighed, getting back to his music. He would be here when Hee-jae got back (if he did).</p>
<p>Eventually though, it got to the point where In-wook asked Seo-woo about that homestay she had lived in for a while, looking for a place to live and craving the family atmosphere. He had even gone to see it with Seo-woo on a break one day, heart aching as he did.</p>
<p>The owner, Eun-joo, was kind, if a bit pushy, but In-wook didn’t mind.</p>
<p>“Kang In-wook? The pianist? Why’s a musician like you looking to live in a homestay?”</p>
<p>“Our income is rather piecemeal and unpredictable.”</p>
<p>“Aren’t you married?”</p>
<p>Seo-woo kicked at her, but for once In-wook swallowed down his annoyance at undue questions about his marital status. “Not anymore.”</p>
<p>The free room was his, if he wanted it, she said. Just let her know by Tuesday.</p>
<p>At that point, it was Friday.</p>
<p><em>I’ll try and patch this up</em>, In-wook decided. <em>One more time.</em></p>
<p>Though it was likely he really had overstayed his welcome. </p>
<p>He was expecting a lot of things anymore when he got...home. But he had not been expecting to find his best friend once again sitting at the table, drunk off his ass.</p>
<p>On soju.</p>
<p>“You were right,” Hee-jae said miserably, taking a drink.</p>
<p>In-wook did not reply, merely took a seat beside him.</p>
<p>Hee-jae’s breath stuttered in his throat. “I hate the way things are. So one more time I talked to her, asked to try and change things. She...wasn’t interested.”</p>
<p>In-wook raised an eyebrow.</p>
<p>“So I broke up with her. Broke off the...arrangement.”</p>
<p>...Wow.</p>
<p>In-wook chose his next words carefully. “How are you doing?”</p>
<p>“Terrible. I’m fucking miserable.”</p>
<p>“I think that might be the soju.”</p>
<p>“I fucking hate soju.”</p>
<p>In-wook smiled fully then. “I’m proud of you, Hee-jae.”</p>
<p>His friend looked up at him sheepishly, eyes brimming with unshed tears. “I’m sorry, In-wook,” he whispered. “I should have listened to you. You have been the one, the only one, supporting me through all of this and I pushed you away because you told me the truth and tried to spare me more pain. I’m so sor—“</p>
<p>In-wook hugged him, grinning wildly as he did.</p>
<p>Never had he been so happy to call the woman at the homestay and tell her he did not need the room.</p>
<p>Hee-jae kept working at Geum-ja’s firm for the time being. In-wook might not have thought it the best, but as it turned out a bunch of people (the tolerable colleagues apparently) originally from Song&amp;Kim had all defected to work there, so he was among familiar company and seemed happy enough about it.</p>
<p>“Not forever,” Hee-jae elaborated. “Just until I figure out what I’m doing with my life. If I’m staying in defense or if I’ll finally join the dark side and work in the prosecutor’s office.”</p>
<p>In-wook chuckled. “Whatever works for you.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae smiled.</p>
<p>They fell back into their routines, which all in all amounted to spending every free minute of their lives together. In-wook wasn’t complaining. His music took on a happier tune, and so did his reviews. As those went up, so did his job prospects.</p>
<p>Yes, those went very up.</p>
<p>In-wook had been vibrating excitedly the entire day waiting to get home and see Hee-jae. Boy, did he have some news.</p>
<p>He was a bit disappointed to find he had beaten him home that evening, but swallowed it and set about making food for them both (Hee-jae had been teaching him how to cook like a pro). By the time Hee-jae did make it home, In-wook had a pot of ramyeon almost finished.</p>
<p>“My recipe?” the lawyer asked with a light smile. “I’ve taught you well.”</p>
<p>In-wook grinned at him. “I doubt it’s as good as when you make it, but it should at least be palatable.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae chuckled and sat down at the table, taking off his coat. “You seem happy.”</p>
<p>In-wook hummed as he dished up two bowls. “I’m over the moon.”</p>
<p>“Oh?”</p>
<p>In-wook set down a bowl in front of him before going to grab something out of his bag.</p>
<p>Hee-jae took the slip of paper In-wook handed him and eyed it curiously. “One ticket to the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra…” Hee-jae smiled up at him. “Thank you for this. Do you have one too?”</p>
<p>“I do not.”</p>
<p>The lawyer frowned. “Aren’t you coming?”</p>
<p>“Oh, I’ll be there.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae start at him, a bit confused, and In-wook couldn’t keep the wide grin from breaking across his face as his friend connected the dots. “OH MY GOD!” Hee-jae leapt up and hugged him. “You’re playing with the orchestra!”</p>
<p>In-wook hugged him back tightly, face pressed to the taller man’s chest. “I am! I was asked to appear as a soloist!”</p>
<p>The next thing he knew, he was being lifted off his feet and spun around as Hee-jae laughed joyfully.</p>
<p>In-wook held tight to his back and laughed along with him.</p>
<p>“I’m so proud of you!” Hee-jae said, smiling at him as he put him down.</p>
<p>In-wook found he didn’t have the words to reply, looking up into his (best) friend’s face. His joy couldn’t be expressed by mere words alone.</p>
<p>As they ate together, Hee-jae chattered excitedly about how good of a seat In-wook had managed to get him and grilled him about what songs were going to be included in the performance.</p>
<p>“So is this a permanent position?” Hee-jae asked him, looking up from his ramyeon. “This is really good by the way.”</p>
<p>In-wook smiled. “Thank you. And no, it’s only for this particular series, but it opens up a wide range of job opportunities for me if I do well. And it’s amazing experience.”</p>
<p>The lawyer nodded. “I’m so excited for you! I can’t wait to watch.”</p>
<p>Silence fell over the table for a moment before In-wook spoke again. “You know, Hee-jae…”</p>
<p>“Hmm?”</p>
<p>In-wook put down his chopsticks. “I know I’ve said this a lot, but...I just wanted to say thank you again for everything you’ve done for me. For letting me stay here especially. Without you I would have had to get another job to afford to live anywhere and my career as a musician would have suffered for it. But also just for listening to me vent about my ex-wife, supporting me as much as you have, getting me out of that murder charge—“</p>
<p>“That was nothing and was never going to be anything.”</p>
<p>“Still. Without you, I would have never gotten out of my slump. So thank you. You have no idea how grateful I am to have you in my life. And how happy I am to be in yours.”</p>
<p>His friend was looking at him, a faint smile on his face, but he didn’t respond for the longest time, long enough that In-wook turned back to his ramyeon.</p>
<p>“In-wook ah,” Hee-jae finally said, sounding almost a bit breathless.</p>
<p>“Hmm?”</p>
<p>By the time In-wook looked back up, there was a warm hand on his cheek and a pair of soft lips pressed to his own.</p>
<p>
  <em>Oh.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Finally.</em>
</p>
<p>In-wook had been so completely stunned and utterly <em>relieved</em> that he completely forgot to kiss back, at least until Hee-jae was pulling away from him, eyes downcast as devastation crossed over his <em>beautiful</em> face.</p>
<p>“I...I...” Hee-jae started to say, but stopped when In-wook caught his retreating hand in his own.</p>
<p>In-wook let out a sharp breath, holding the other man’s hand tightly, before he leaned in and kissed him back.</p>
<p>Hee-jae’s reaction was immediate, hauling In-wook into his lap and wrapping his arms around him, kissing him so passionately it made In-wook’s head spin.</p>
<p>“Finally,” In-wook said aloud in between kisses.</p>
<p>“Finally? What do you mean finally?” Hee-jae murmured into his hair, holding him as tightly as he could. “I’ve been practically screaming ‘I love you’ for months now and you knew and didn’t think to kiss me?” When In-wook froze for the briefest moment at the words, so did he. “Too soon?” he asked, voice suddenly very small.</p>
<p>“No,” In-wook responded, kissing him deeply.</p>
<p>In-wook wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, Hee-jae leaning back in the kitchen chair, arms wrapped tightly around tightly around In-wook as the pianist straddled his lap, learning the taste and feel of each other. Breaking down one last barrier.</p>
<p>“I never thought…” In-wook panted when the kiss broke, suddenly very hot. “I never even considered…”</p>
<p>“With a man?” Hee-jae’s hands were on his waist, his body firm against his, and In-wook was harder than he had ever been in his life.</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Do you want—“</p>
<p>“<em>Yes.</em>”</p>
<p>Then he was being hoisted up into Hee-jae’s arms (the man was <em>strong)</em> and In-wook squeaked in surprise, clutching tightly to his neck as Hee-jae continued to kiss the breath out of him. Once in the bedroom, Hee-jae put him down and then they were stripping the clothes from each other’s bodies, desperately seeking bare skin (In-wook had been married for nearly a decade and he didn’t know it could be like this, it was never like this with Jisoo, not even in the early days of their marriage).</p>
<p>Hee-jae let out a harsh breath. “You’re gorgeous,” he whispered, pulling In-wook as close as he could. A few more minutes of breathless kissing and he asked, “You’ve never…with anyone but your wife?”</p>
<p>“Right.”</p>
<p>In-wook suddenly found himself flat on his back on the bed and the lawyer was climbing over him to straddle his hips, rummaging around in the bedside drawer.</p>
<p>“I don’t…normally do it like this, but it’ll be faster this way since you’ve never done it before.”</p>
<p>His hand emerged grasping lube and a condom, and In-wook had an idea of what he was referring to. “Oh…”</p>
<p>Hee-jae visibly reigned himself in, settling back on In-wook’s thighs and asking. “Okay?”</p>
<p>In-wook let out a breath, hands ghosting over Hee-jae’s hips as he took in the sight of the truly <em>beautiful</em> man above him. “If you are.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae snorted. <em>“If I am?</em>” He pitched forward suddenly, catching In-wook’s lips in a fiery kiss and grinding their hips together. “I’m more than okay with this,” he panted when the kiss broke, spreading the lube on his fingers and reaching behind himself. “I’ve only been…fucking myself on toys to the thought of you every spare moment I had for <em>months</em>.”</p>
<p>In-wook nearly choked at the heat that flared low in his belly at that. Then Hee-jae was rolling the condom over his cock and sinking down on him in one smooth movement, letting out the most intolerably lovely sound as he did.</p>
<p>In-wook bit his tongue hard to keep from coming then and there. Never having had a particularly high sex drive and his marriage having ended the way it did, it had been a <em>long </em>time since he had sex. And it had <em>never </em>felt like this before.</p>
<p>Hee-jae whined softly as he braced his hands on In-wook’s chest and rolled his hips. “You feel so good…” he nearly whimpered. “So much better than I imagined.” And then he was fucking himself on In-wook’s cock with fervor and In-wook had never been more aroused in his life.</p>
<p>He reached for Hee-jae’s hips, hands molding perfectly over his prominent hipbones. Even with the condom, Hee-jae’s insides were velvety soft and broiling hot around him, his movements just perfect and the tiny sounds escaping his throat sending sparks of pleasure up In-wook’s spine.</p>
<p>“I’m not gonna last…” he warned, hands roving over Hee-jae’s hips and chest.</p>
<p>“Me neither,” Hee-jae panted in reply, but when In-wook reached for his cock, he slapped the hand away. At In-wook’s questioning look, he elaborated, “I can come like this…I wanna come like this…”</p>
<p>That punched a breath out of In-wook’s lungs and he tightened his grip on Hee-jae’s waist. “Can you?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae nodded with a whimper, clenching down hard around him.</p>
<p>In-wook moaned. “You are so perfect…so beautiful…”</p>
<p>“In-wook ah…”</p>
<p>“The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae whined, hips stuttering.</p>
<p>“Come for me,” In-wook whispered, grinding up into Hee-jae in time with the rolls of his hips. “Come for me. Let me see you.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae rolled his hips once, twice more before he let out sharp cry, walls fluttering <em>just right</em> around In-wook’s cock and then In-wook too was coming harder than he ever had in his life, vision whiting out as he tossed his head back, letting out a choked groan.</p>
<p>Hee-jae kept rolling his hips as they rode out the aftershocks and briefly In-wook wondered if this had been a dream (he confessed to having had more than one like this in previous weeks).</p>
<p>But it wasn’t.</p>
<p><em>It wasn’t</em>, he thought as he relaxed bonelessly into the bed, Hee-jae leaning over him and kissing him sweetly. In-wook curled a hand around the back of his neck and kissed him back.</p>
<p>
  <em>Finally.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>TBC</strong>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. A Happy Ending</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Something of an epilogue and a happy ending</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Okay, here's the last bit! A bit angsty, this but also happy and romantic! I hope you enjoy it!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When In-wook awoke, it was to feeling more well-rested than he had in a long time. He was alone in the expansive bed, its sheets positioned as if someone had tucked them in around him.</p>
<p>He smiled.<em> Hee-jae.</em></p>
<p>He was in Hee-jae’s bed. Hee-jae’s, who was his…boyfriend now, apparently. His smile widened as he shut his eyes, drifting back off to sleep for a while, not a care in the world. When he finally did surface, it was to the smell of breakfast cooking. Eggs, tofu, and rice, his nose told him. That was enough to pull him out of bed.</p>
<p>Hee-jae turned when he heard the In-wook come in.</p>
<p>“I was wondering when you would surface,” he said with a wide smile.</p>
<p>In-wook smiled back, stretching languidly. “I haven’t slept so well in…a <em>very</em> long time.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae regarded him almost nervously, fingers dancing on the handle of the pan he was holding. In-wook had a sense of what he was wanting to do, so he went right up and did it himself. He caught Hee-jae around the back of the neck and pulled him down to kiss him. Hee-jae could barely return it, he was smiling so widely.</p>
<p>“I made you tea,” the lawyer said when the kiss ended.</p>
<p>In-wook nodded his thanks and poured a cup of it.</p>
<p>Leaning against the counter and watching Hee-jae cook, briefly he pondered the turns of events by which he had ended up here. The memories made him chuckle out loud before he could stop himself.</p>
<p>“What?” Hee-jae asked.</p>
<p>In-wook shook his head. “We have been in a relationship since I move in, haven’t we?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae laughed too, overjoyed. “Essentially.”</p>
<p>“Literally everything except kissing and sex.”</p>
<p>“A crying shame, that.” The kiss Hee-jae gave him then had In-wook swaying on his feet. “Plenty of time to make up for it.”</p>
<p>Yes, indeed.</p>
<p>Hee-jae broke away then in favor of dishing them up. “So when do you have to go into the studio today?”</p>
<p>“I don’t today.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae looked over at him. <em>“Really?”</em></p>
<p>“My manager let me off the hook for one day since I got such a good offer. Told me to go spend it with my partner for once.”</p>
<p>“Your <em>partner?”</em></p>
<p>In-wook nodded. “Everyone has thought I’ve been seeing someone for many months now. I…never corrected them.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae gaped. “Do you have <em>any</em> idea how many times I almost kissed you since you’ve been living with me? Right from the very beginning.”</p>
<p>In-wook met his eyes. “Glad you finally did.”</p>
<p>The<em> love</em> on Hee-jae’s face...</p>
<p>In-wook thought for the briefest moment on Geum-ja and wondered how in the hell she had managed to throw this away. Throw <em>him </em>away.</p>
<p>
  <em>So long as he wants me, I’ll never let it go.</em>
</p>
<p>In-wook took a sip of his tea. “So seeing as I don’t have to go in today…didn’t think I really needed to leave the apartment at all…” He hoped it was obvious what he was implying. When he met Hee-jae’s eyes, he saw that it was.</p>
<p>“Eat breakfast first,” the lawyer said, a certain lilt to his voice. “Then I might just have one or two things I may have wanted to show you…”</p>
<p>Breakfast ended up needing to be reheated.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>The thing that ended up surprising In-wook the most about his new relationship was how much he <em>loved</em> sex.</p>
<p>With Jisoo it had been nice, but it never bothered him if they went long stretches of time without sleeping together. With her, he had been content with her companionship and had never felt himself as being <em>in need</em> of sex. It was enough to simply feel close to her.</p>
<p>With Hee-jae, he couldn’t get enough of it.</p>
<p>“I hate to break it to you…” Hee-jae panted into his hair, arms tightly around his neck as In-wook pounded into him. “But I think the reason for that.. is you’re gay.”</p>
<p>“You think?” In-wook replied cheekily, catching one of Hee-jae’s legs under his arm and pressing it up towards his chest to get a better angle.</p>
<p>His partner nearly wailed.</p>
<p>Any which way they did it, In-wook <em>loved it</em>. Be it their favorite position with Hee-jae riding him until they both came (how In-wook loved to watch his perfect body move), their close second favorite (Hee-jae on his back with his legs tight around In-wook’s waist, kissing the whole time), or this new one.</p>
<p>That is, Hee-jae using that strong body he worked so hard on and holding In-wook up as they fucked against the wall, In-wook’s legs wrapped around his waist. Yes, In-wook liked that one very much. Being on the receiving end of anal sex may have been an acquired taste for In-wook, but he had certainly acquired it.</p>
<p>He had never been adventurous before, ever, but with Hee-jae he was more than willing to try anything his partner suggested to him. He would have thought he would balk at the idea of putting his mouth on someone else’s cock, let alone the thought of <em>rimming</em> another man, but he didn’t (the <em>sounds</em> Hee-jae made during the latter, it was truly music to In-wook’s ears).</p>
<p>Hee-jae himself seemed to have settled into preferring the bottom role, despite what he originally said about not normally doing it that way. Regularly he would mention how much he loved In-wook’s pianist’s fingers inside him. In-wook was more than happy to oblige.</p>
<p>“I never would have thought,” Hee-jae murmured one night about three months after the start of their physical relationship. “That you would have been able to keep up with me.”</p>
<p>“Are you saying I’m old?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae giggled and burrowed further into In-wook’s embrace. “No! You know what I mean!”</p>
<p>In-wook held him tighter.</p>
<p>That was the other thing he loved. Having someone curled against your back while you slept (Hee-jae still wouldn’t turn up the damn heat), waking up with someone beside you (however rarely, In-wook had always thought <em>he</em> got up early). Having someone to come home to, to kiss goodbye everyday, to share things with.</p>
<p>To love.</p>
<p>“I love you,” he told Hee-jae as he kissed him goodbye one weekend morning, promising he would be home for dinner.</p>
<p>“I love you,” his partner replied with a soft smile. “Don’t you dare google the ending to this!” He held up the English-language murder-mystery (his favorite) he had been reading to In-wook as In-wook helped him with his pronunciation.</p>
<p>“Wouldn’t dream of it.”</p>
<p>In-wook was honestly neutral towards the books himself, but Hee-jae adored them so he was happy to listen to them.</p>
<p>In the meantime, in between practicing Mozart with the philharmonic for his upcoming series, he had begun composing one or two new songs. Maybe, if you listened right, they sounded like love songs.</p>
<p>He was <em>so happy</em>.</p>
<p>He had never thought it possible to be this happy.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>“Come with you?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae nodded, staring at him intently.</p>
<p>In-wook looked down at the glass he was spinning between his fingers. “As you partner or as your friend?”</p>
<p>“As my partner.”</p>
<p>In-wook worried his lip between his teeth. “And…have you thought about the impact our relationship being…visible might have on your career?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae sighed heavily but patiently. “You don’t have to come with me if you’re not ready.”</p>
<p>“We’re not talking about me, we’re talking about—“</p>
<p>“In-wook.” Hee-jae’s voice was firm and steady. “I’ve been out for years. Not so openly as some, but I don’t hide the fact that I date both men and women. So <em>I’m</em> fine. But if <em>you’re</em> not, it’s okay.”</p>
<p>In-wook tried to explain away the gnawing feeling in his stomach to himself, the itchiness in his bones. He couldn’t. “Do they…”</p>
<p>“Know it’s you?” Hee-jae prompted. “No, I never once used your name. I don’t out people. But we haven’t been subtle, even before we were officially together it was obvious we cared about each other. So they might have guessed.”</p>
<p>In-wook shivered.</p>
<p>Hee-jae rested a hand gently over his. “Don’t worry about it. Take your time. It’s scary…especially here. I just wanted you to know you’re invited if you wanted to come.” And he left In-wook in peace, pressing a quick peck to his forehead. “I’m going to go work out. I’ll be back in a little bit.”</p>
<p>In-wook nodded, eyes still fixed on the grain of the table.</p>
<p>He paced the floor of their apartment after Hee-jae left, trying to rationalize his feelings to himself, analyze them, and when that didn’t work he sat down at his piano (Hee-jae had gotten him a proper one) and tried to play them out.</p>
<p>Half an hour later, his fingers fell angrily from the keys with a half shout and he buried his face in his hands.</p>
<p>
  <em>Goddamnit.</em>
</p>
<p>He was loathe to admit it, but he was <em>scared.</em> He had made it all this way and while it was true that attitudes in Korea were changing, it was no Norway. He had come so far and part of him trembled at the thought of what might happen if the older, more conservative population that were the primary consumers of his music found out about his relationship. For the life of him, this was one problem he could not solve.</p>
<p>At least…not alone.</p>
<p>He walked up the stairs to their bedroom, his phone in his hands. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he hovered his thumb over one contact in particular, given to him after a rather odd but heartfelt conversation at ass o’clock at night after a rehearsal.</p>
<p>
  <em>If you ever need it.</em>
</p>
<p>Ko I-man.</p>
<p>The man had come out as gay not long after In-wook met Hee-jae. His career had briefly suffered for it, but he had been unapologetic and radiant in his newfound freedom and it quickly recovered, bolstered by young people and the worldwide queer community, eager to support such a pioneer.</p>
<p>“Hello?” a familiar voice asked on the other.</p>
<p>“Ko I-man?” In-wook replied. “It’s ah…it’s Kang In-wook.”</p>
<p>“Oh!” the violinist said happily. “In-wook shi! So good to hear from you, it’s been a while. How are you?”</p>
<p>“I’m well. And you?”</p>
<p>“Very good! We’ll have to collaborate again soon.”</p>
<p>In-wook cracked a smile. “I’m surprised you still want to after my shoddy performance last time.”</p>
<p>I-man laughed. “Hush, you sounded fine.”</p>
<p>In-wook chuckled. “Listen, I ah…”</p>
<p>“Hmm?”</p>
<p>In-wook was quiet for a moment. “I…I called to ask for advice.”</p>
<p>“About?”</p>
<p>In-wook chewed on his lip and shut his eyes. “…Coming out.”</p>
<p>“<em>I knew it!</em>”</p>
<p>In-wook was momentarily stunned into silence. “You knew?” he finally managed.</p>
<p>“In-wook shi, you fell outta the gay tree and hit every gay branch on the way down. I knew it the first time I met you! Heck, I saw the ring on your finger and almost asked you how long you’d been married to your husband, seeing as you’re from Norway and all.”</p>
<p>“Well…” In-wook shifted a bit uncomfortably. “You’re not wrong. Is it so obvious?”</p>
<p>I-man hummed. “To us maybe. Us queers and all I mean.” His tone shifted to be a bit more serious. “So you’re thinking about coming out?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Are you seeing someone?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Seriously so?”</p>
<p>In-wook paused for a moment. “Quite seriously, yes,” he replied softly.</p>
<p>I-man paused as well. “So are you asking me how to do it or if you should?”</p>
<p>In-wook’s free hand trembled in front of him. “If I should.”</p>
<p>“Honey.” I-man’s voice was gentle. “Think about it like this. You’re seeing someone seriously, would you really be content to hide this forever? Would he? You’re worried about your career, I get it, especially given what happened to mine for a while there. And right after this big break you got, congratulations by the way. Again, we really have to collaborate… But you have to think instead about you and your happiness. Would you be happy, hiding forever?”</p>
<p>“…Hardly.”</p>
<p>“Then there’s your answer! And if you still have doubts…” I-man sighed. “This is what finally changed things for me. Because I’d already been hiding for such a long time, I thought why not keep doing so. But then I thought about all the other young musicians like me, the kids like me who will one day stand on stage and play with me. I didn’t want them to feel the way I did, like they had to hide. So I thought, you know, maybe if I come out, it’ll be easier for the next musician. And the next and the next, until the itty bitty baby musicians don’t have to be afraid anymore. That’s what tipped the scales for me.”</p>
<p>In-wook didn’t reply, considering his words.</p>
<p>“And it looks like I was right,” I-man went on. “Considering you’re calling me now about this.”</p>
<p>“Right…” In-wook murmured.</p>
<p>“Take your time. But do think about what I said.” I-man’s voice changed again, smile audible. “What’s his name?”</p>
<p>In-wook smiled too. “Hee-jae.”</p>
<p>“Awww!” I-man said happily. “When you do come out, we’ll have to go on a double date. I know a couple of gay-owned, discreet places. That’s actually how you could do it, coming out I mean. Just stop hiding. You don’t even have to say anything. Just go about your life with him and let people draw their own conclusions.”</p>
<p>In-wook considered that for a moment. “...I could do that,” he murmured, mostly to himself.</p>
<p>“Yes, you could.”</p>
<p>The pianist nodded to himself. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>“My pleasure.”</p>
<p>“Take care, I-man shi.”</p>
<p>“You too. Call me if you need anything!”</p>
<p>In-wook hung up and stared at the carpet under his feet.</p>
<p>“Who was that?”</p>
<p>The pianist glanced up, eyes falling on Hee-jae, a bit sweaty from his workout. In-wook allowed his eyes to trace up his lightly muscled form appreciatively before attending to his question. “Ko I-man.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae gaped. “<em>Ko I-man!</em> You’re just up here in our bedroom talking to <em>Ko I-man!</em>” In-wook laughed while Hee-jae pouted. “That is so not fair.”</p>
<p>“Well he wants to go on a double date, so you’ll get to meet him again.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae stared some more. “You told him…about us?”</p>
<p>In-wook nodded slowly. “I…called him for advice. As a musician who is out, I mean.”</p>
<p>His partner nodded. “What did he say?”</p>
<p>“A lot…” In-wook stared at nothing, considering. “I’ll…I’ll go with you tomorrow night to the dinner. As your partner.”</p>
<p>“You will?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>Before In-wook could even process it, he was swept up in Hee-jae’s arms.</p>
<p>“Get off me, you’re so sweaty!” In-wook complained, pushing half-heartedly at Hee-jae’s shoulders even as he laughed.</p>
<p>Then he was being pressed flat on his back on the bed, Hee-jae climbing over him to straddle his hips. “As will you be when I’m done with you.”</p>
<p>In-wook burned under that gaze, hands falling to Hee-jae’s hips.</p>
<p>His partner hummed, leaning down to kiss him. “What do you want?”</p>
<p>“You.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae grinned into him mouth, resuming the kiss with added heat as he shifted down between In-wook’s spread thighs. A short while later, as Hee-jae pressed inside him and In-wook sighed with the pleasure of it, he remained in awe of how <em>good</em> it felt like this.</p>
<p><em>I’ll never let this go</em>, he thought, soft moans and pants escaping his throat as Hee-jae fucked him with deep, even thrusts just the way he liked it. <em>Ever.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>No matter what.</em>
</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>The restaurant they went to the following evening was a little hole in the wall joint somewhere to the left of downtown Seoul. In-wook confessed to being a bit surprised —he was going out to dinner with a bunch of rich lawyers— but was honestly grateful for the slightly more familiar environment. He had really not been up to the stresses of high society on top of everything else.</p>
<p><em>Just go about your life with him</em>, I-man had said. <em>Let everyone else draw their own conclusions.</em></p>
<p>As they walked in, In-wook laced their fingers together. Hee-jae glanced over at him, a bit surprised himself, but smiled.</p>
<p>In-wook smiled back. <em>This I can do.</em></p>
<p>Everyone turned upon seeing them walk in, waving them over and In-wook hung back a bit as Hee-jae fidgeted excitedly.</p>
<p>“Everyone, this is my partner, Kang In-wook. In-wook ah—“ Hee-jae turned to him and In-wook was reminded of how much he loved him. “This is everyone.”</p>
<p>In-wook nodded to them. Geum-ja he knew, unfortunately, and aside from her there were two other men and two women. Much as In-wook tried to remember their names, they went in one ear and out the other. All except for the one girl with the short hair, Ji-eun, sitting across from In-wook, who was just beaming at him.</p>
<p>Introductions and pleasantries out of the way, conversation rebounded as drinks were ordered, and In-wook soon found out why.</p>
<p>“I love your music,” the girl said a bit shyly, a wide smile still on her face.</p>
<p>In-wook smiled back. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>She blushed. “Sorry, you must...hear that a lot.”</p>
<p>In-wook shrugged. “It always makes me happy to hear younger people still like classical music. Considering the average age of people who attend my concerts is about 65, it is very reassuring to know I’ll still have a job in twenty years.”</p>
<p>She laughed.</p>
<p>The evening progressed well. He chatted mostly with Ji-eun and Hee-jae’s other female colleague whose name escaped him, decidedly ignoring Geumja at the end of the table and hoping that she would continue to do him the same favor. He could play polite in public, but he still did not appreciate how badly she had treated his partner and felt no need to be anything other than cordial with her.</p>
<p>She, unfortunately, did not extend him the same courtesy.</p>
<p>“So,” she drawled, clearly a bit drunk on soju. “You two are together now?”</p>
<p>Ji-eun fidgeted. “Ms. Jung—“</p>
<p>“Yes,” Hee-jae interrupted, staring at Geum-ja with a blank look on his face. “We are. Who wants another round of drinks?”</p>
<p>She hummed, ignoring Hee-jae and turning to In-wook. “Didn’t know you were gay. Knew you—“ she motioned to Hee-jae “were, but not you. Weren’t you married to a woman?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae’s hand closed on In-wook’s under the table as he fixed the woman with a hard stare. “Geum-ja, don’t, you said you wouldn’t—“</p>
<p>“It’s fine,” In-wook said, cutting him off and staring right back at Geumja, about done with her and her shit. “A bit embarrassing that I have to be the one to break this to you, Geumja shi, but marriages end and people are gay.... I…don’t know what else to tell you.”</p>
<p>She snorted, looking away.</p>
<p><em>Is she jealous?</em> In-wook wondered. Oh, didn’t that feel good.</p>
<p>An awkward silence permeated the table as In-wook glanced around with a smile, willing anyone else with any grievances to go right on ahead and air them, he was ready.</p>
<p>Ji-eun finally broke it. “There’s a piano here!”</p>
<p>In-wook glanced behind him. “So there is.”</p>
<p>She looked at him hopefully, as did Hee-jae.</p>
<p>The pianist sighed. “Fine, but only if you promise not to tell my manager.”</p>
<p>Ji-eun clapped happily and In-wook smiled.</p>
<p>“What am I playing?”</p>
<p>“Mozart!” Hee-jae said immediately.</p>
<p>In-wook made a face. “Completely wrong atmosphere and definitely in my contract not to do.”</p>
<p>“Do you know any BTS?” Ji-eun asked.</p>
<p>“You mean do I live in Korea? Yes, yes I do.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae scoffed. “You don’t listen to BTS.”</p>
<p>“That’s true, but their music plays constantly in literally every store I have ever walked into in this blasted country.”</p>
<p>“Preach,” said Hee-jae’s older male colleague.</p>
<p>In-wook chuckled. “Which one am I playing?”</p>
<p>The song Ji-eun requested In-wook did not recognize by name, but when she played it for him, he knew it.</p>
<p>“Alright,” he said, standing up and making his way to the piano. “Let’s do this.” He glanced at the man working behind the bar. “Okay if I play this?”</p>
<p>He grunted. “Only if you’re good.”</p>
<p>In-wook shrugged and sat down.</p>
<p>It was definitely in his contract that he was not to give free concerts, but so long as he was playing his own off-the-cuff renditions of pop songs (aka nothing to do with his normal material) he figured it was fine. Besides, it made Hee-jae smile and Ji-eun too (I-man’s words about making it easier for the next generation of gay youth had been echoing around in his head since he met her. Because she wasn’t just beaming at him because she, a young pop music fan, liked his music, was she?)</p>
<p>The restaurant turned into something of a party that evening as people danced and sang and clapped along, a seemingly never ending stream of requests pouring in for him to play next, but In-wook couldn’t complain. It had been a long time since he had had this much fun.</p>
<p>Hee-jae had to practically carry his younger male colleague home by the end of the night (drinking was apparently not something the boy was ever supposed to do, but regularly did anyway). As the others stumbled through the streets behind them, waiting for cabs, In-wook stood arm in arm with Ji-eun.</p>
<p>“You really just played those off the top of your head?!”</p>
<p>In-wook nodded. “I’m a musician, I should hope I’d have a bit of an ear for music.”</p>
<p>“That’s so cool! I wish I could do that.”</p>
<p>“Have you ever tried?”</p>
<p>She had not, and vibrated excitedly when In-wook said he would bring her his old keyboard to learn on.</p>
<p>“That’s too generous, I couldn’t possibly—“ she fussed before In-wook cut her off.</p>
<p>“Please get that thing out of my apartment. I really can’t stand the sound quality.”</p>
<p>“Been spoiled by those beautiful grand pianos, have you?” she joked.</p>
<p>In-wook laughed. “A bit, yes.”</p>
<p>They stood in amicable silence for a while, utterly ignoring the drunken ramblings of the others.</p>
<p>Eventually, Ji-eun spoke again. “I wish I was as brave as you...” she whispered, hand tightening on In-wook’s arm.</p>
<p>
  <em>And maybe the next itty bitty baby musician won’t find it so hard to live as they are.</em>
</p>
<p>“I’m not brave,” In-wook answered honestly. “My boyfriend is brave. Ko I-man is brave, but I’m not. I almost didn’t even come tonight…because I was afraid.”</p>
<p>“Glad you did,” she said with a smile.</p>
<p>In-wook smiled back.</p>
<p>Of course, Geumja picked that moment to show up.</p>
<p>“You’re not right for him.”</p>
<p>Ji-eun spluttered beside him, saying it was late, everyone was drunk, they just needed to all go home and sleep this off, but In-wook was not about to let that one slide.</p>
<p>“It’s really not up to you or me for that matter. It’s up to him.”</p>
<p>“What could he possibly see...in a washed up, wet blanket of a musician?”</p>
<p>“Geumja shi!” Ji-eun half-shrieked.</p>
<p>In-wook patted the girl’s arm. “Geumja shi,” he began evenly. “I’m not interested in arguing with you. What he sees in me is his business. Perhaps you should ask him that.”</p>
<p>“He says he loves you.” Damn, did she sound sad when she said that.</p>
<p>In-wook was probably just a little bit of a terrible person for enjoying that, but she had taken terrible advantage of his now-partner, so he didn’t feel too bad. “And I him,” he replied. “And I guess you’re just going to have to live with that, now aren’t you?”</p>
<p>Finally, the taxis pulled up, and he turned to her one last time.</p>
<p>“We all make our decisions, and then we deal with consequences. More often then not, we really only have ourselves to blame.”</p>
<p>As he got into the cab with Hee-jae, waving goodbye to Ji-eun, Geumja’s eyes burned holes into him.</p>
<p>He fucking reveled in it.</p>
<p>“Did you have fun tonight?” Hee-jae asked him later as they were laying in bed, finally home.</p>
<p>“I did,” In-wook answered, pulling the lawyer closer. “Thank you for inviting me.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae kissed him softly before pulling away, a bit uncomfortable. “I’m...sorry about Geumja. She was out of line.”</p>
<p>In-wook shrugged. “Well first of all, I don’t know why you’re apologizing for her behavior. She’s an adult and she’s responsible for her ownactions. But really, I’m not upset about it. A few things were aired that needed to be.”</p>
<p>A small smile flickered across Hee-jae’s face.</p>
<p>In-wook brushed a hand through his partner’s hair. “I hope I haven’t made things awkward for you, working there still.”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry about me,” Hee-jae answered. “I was never planning on staying there forever.”</p>
<p>In-wook smiled. “I’m proud of you.”</p>
<p>“I love you.”</p>
<p>“And I you.”</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>In-wook had been pacing the floor for hours.</p>
<p>“Just order the damn music and stop wearing a hole in my floor,” Hee-jae called from the couch.</p>
<p>“It’s not that simple.”</p>
<p>“What do you mean it’s not that simple?”</p>
<p>In-wook stopped. “Musicians have gone mad trying to learn that piece.”</p>
<p>“That’s ridiculous.”</p>
<p>“But it’s true! This piece is feared. Can you understand that? <em>Legitimately feared.</em>”</p>
<p>Hee-jae turned to look at him, exasperated. “This piece should be afraid of you. You’re an accomplished musician!”</p>
<p>“And plenty of other accomplished musicians have gone crazy trying to learn it.”</p>
<p>“In-wook ahhh,” Hee-jae sighed. “Is that what’s really stopping you?”</p>
<p>The pianist was silent for a long time, drumming his fingers on his bicep. “What if I’m not good enough to play it?” he finally asked.</p>
<p>Hee-jae got up and came to stand in front of him, holding him by the waist. “Then you’ll practice and get better and try again.”</p>
<p>In-wook shook his head. “This piece is...significant for me. Very significant. You’re right, I’m not afraid of the difficulty, but I am afraid of...the effect it will have on me does not go as I’d hoped.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae rubbed his arms gently. “You’re afraid of another slump.”</p>
<p>“I’m afraid of another slump.”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>In-wook let himself be folded up in his partner’s arms. “My last one nearly cost me my career...I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t play anymore.”</p>
<p>The lawyer hummed. “I think you have a few options in between ‘learn to play this piece’ and ‘never touch a piano again’.”</p>
<p>In-wook leaned his forehead on Hee-jae’s collarbone, conceding the point and letting the clean smell of his partner soothe his nerves. “So I should order it?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“...Alright then.”</p>
<p>“Good, because I actually placed the order for it about an hour ago.”</p>
<p>In-wook scoffed at him, shoving at his chest as Hee-jae laughed, a wide smile on his face.</p>
<p>A week later and he found himself sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the music.</p>
<p>Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.3, better known as simply Rach 3, widely considered to be the hardest piece of music ever written.</p>
<p>“You know something, Hee-jae ah?”</p>
<p>The lawyer glanced over at him. “Hmm?”</p>
<p>“This right here is why I became a pianist. The first time I heard it, I knew I wanted to play it. I started playing piano so I could play this one day. That’s why it’s so significant for me. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for this...”</p>
<p>Hee-jae walked over to stand behind his chair and wrapped his arms around him. “I believe in you, love,” he said, pressing a kiss to the side of In-wook’s head. “But I want you to know...even if it turns out you can’t play this piece, you’re still a world class musician, an amazing pianist, and I’m so proud of you.”</p>
<p>In-wook’s heart felt full, and he wrapped a hand around Hee-jae’s. “I love you.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae kissed him properly. “I love you too.”</p>
<p>Later that day, In-wook sat down in front of his piano at home, took a deep breath, and began.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>It became clear rather quickly that it was going to be a long process. The piece itself was 45 minutes long, and was of course <em>the hardest piece of music ever written</em>. On top of that, In-wook still had his work with the orchestra as well as his next album.</p>
<p>So, with Hee-jae’s support and urging, he made it a long term goal rather than a short term one. Made himself learn it one hand at a time (it made the sections he actually needed to do that for a bit more bearable), section by section.</p>
<p><em>It’s as much about the journey as the destination</em>, he told himself.</p>
<p>As were most things in life.</p>
<p>Speaking of which, word had eventually gotten out through the music community that In-wook was in a relationship with a man, and had been so for a while. The backlash was instantaneous, and not at all like In-wook had expected.</p>
<p>To be honest, he half wondered if he would be able to keep his spot on the orchestra or if he would be kicked out because of his sexuality when he was found out. He expected slurs, insults, obvious hatred. But as it turned out, that was not the worst of it. That garbage was relatively easy to block out and combat, saying ‘those people are rude and those people are wrong’.</p>
<p>No, the worst of it went to the microagressions.</p>
<p>The stares at the studio, the whispers at rehearsal, the sidelong glances in the music store, the avoidance during warmup. It was <em>draining</em>. And it was all so small and indirect that In-wook found it almost impossible to confront without sounding like the rude one himself.</p>
<p>He tried to let it go for a while, let them grow tired of it and remember that he was still the same musician he was before they knew he was gay, but the longer it went on, the more it seemed like it would never stop. After that, it did not take very long for In-wook to get sick of it</p>
<p>“Alright,” he said, walking into rehearsal one day. “Let’s get this out in the open. Yes, I am currently in a relationship with another man. Yes, I am gay. If anyone has anything to say about that, please go right ahead and say it right here, right now, to my face so we can be done with it.”</p>
<p>Of course, no one said anything.</p>
<p>“Look,” he hissed. “You all don’t have to like it. But unless we all want to sound like actual garbage when we open next week, the whispers need to stop when I’m sitting right here, alright? It’s really quite rude.”</p>
<p>Rehearsal was dead silent the rest of the day.</p>
<p><em>“Damn</em>,” I-man laughed later that night at the gay club where In-wook met him for drinks (this was hardly his scene, the music gave him a headache and as a rule he was not this social, but it was the only place anymore where people would stop <em>staring</em> at him). “I’m proud of you.”</p>
<p>In-wook sighed, rubbing his eyes. “Does it ever stop?” he wondered aloud.</p>
<p>The smile fell off of I-man’s face and he did not reply, at least not until he saw Hee-jae. “Oh, your boyfriend is here.”</p>
<p>In-wook turned, immediately relaxing as soon as he set his eyes on his partner. “Hee-jae ah,” he said with a smile.</p>
<p>The lawyer smiled at him too and bent down to kiss him. “Rough day?”</p>
<p>“A bit. Thank you for meeting us here.”</p>
<p>“Of course,” Hee-jae said, sitting down next to him, still a bit fidgety around I-man (his musical hero, the lawyer had told In-wook multiple times). “Though when you said <em>you</em> wanted to meet at a club, I got a little concerned.”</p>
<p>I-man smiled at them. “Oh?”</p>
<p>“This is much more his scene than mine,” In-wook elaborated, resting his head on his folded arms.</p>
<p>“Too old for this, are you, In-wook shi?” the man teased as he rubbed the pianist’s back, In-wook’s age a running joke between them.</p>
<p>The pianist scoffed.</p>
<p>Things had not been easy on Hee-jae’s end either.</p>
<p>It was, of course, unbearably awkward working day in and day out with your ex, as he was quickly finding out working for Geum-ja. His old friend, the prosecutor (who was apparently also gay and who Hee-jae had dated for a time in law school) had offered him a place in the DA’s office (though again, the ex problem) but Hee-jae had come under increasing scrutiny from his family.</p>
<p>His uncle thrown in jail, his father disgraced, their previously upstanding family had already been cast in a very poor light and none of them took very kindly to Hee-jae’s visible relationship with another man.</p>
<p>In-wook had come home from rehearsal one day to find Hee-jae already in bed, buried under the covers and weeping softly.</p>
<p>“My brother won’t speak to me,” he cried. “And I went to visit my father today, but he wouldn’t see me. No one in my family will talk to me!”</p>
<p>In-wook’s heart broke. While his own mother hadn’t been all that pleased to hear he had divorced Jisoo only to get into a relationship with a man, at least she still talked to him, if tersely. It pissed In-wook off. What did it matter that he and Hee-jae were together? If people had such a problem with homosexuality, then perhaps they shouldn’t date someone of the same gender. But leave other people alone.</p>
<p>In-wook spent the evening holding him and letting him cry as he forced down the frustration of seeing his partner in pain and being utterly powerless to do anything about it.</p>
<p>“At least I have you,” Hee-jae sniffled into his chest. “You’re worth it.”</p>
<p>In-wook shut his eyes and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “It’s not right that you even have to make a decision like that, between your family and your partner.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae made a dejected noise and pulled In-wook closer. “It’s old news actually,” he murmured dully. “They knew…about me even before I started dating you. Back when I was still in school I dated a few men and they found out. Threatened to disown me, the whole nine yards…I caved to them. It was Yong-un —you know, the prosecutor— who I was dating at the time, and I broke up with him because they told me to. Dated a string of girls to ‘recover my reputation’ though it was really theirs they were covering for. It’s true that I’m bisexual, but…</p>
<p>“But it wasn’t them you wanted to be dating,” In-wook finished for him.</p>
<p>“Exactly. Exactly… Anyway, my relationship with them has been tense ever since. I’ve always felt like I have to do whatever they want, be whatever they want if I want to stay in contact with them and my being a lawyer rather than a judge was already a strain even before this, but they at least expected me to become a prosecutor and when I didn’t…” He shook his head. “It’s all shot to hell now.”</p>
<p>“Oh Hee-jae…” The pianist felt more tears drip onto his collarbone.</p>
<p>“It hurts so <em>bad</em>. It’s not right that they’re doing this to me, but they’re still my family and I don’t want them gone…”</p>
<p>“I’m so sorry, Hee-jae ah…”</p>
<p>His partner did not reply.</p>
<p>In-wook didn’t sleep that night, trying to work out <em>something</em> he could do, <em>anything</em> to make this better but came up empty.</p>
<p><em>I need a fucking vacation</em>, he groused on his way to work the next day. And that, oddly enough, turned out to be his answer.</p>
<p>“Hee-jae ah,” he said over dinner that night.</p>
<p>“Hmm?”</p>
<p>“I came upon an opportunity today.”</p>
<p>“Oh?”</p>
<p>“In Norway.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae’s entire body stiffened. “A…permanent opportunity or…?”</p>
<p>In-wook stared at him for a moment, confused pondering his partner’s pained expression. Then his brain caught up. “No! No, goodness no.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae melted forward on the table, reaching over to grab In-wook’s hand as he laughed in relief. “Don’t <em>scare</em> me like that, In-wook ah!”</p>
<p>In-wook chuckled too, holding tight to his hand. “I’m sorry, love,” he said, smiling. “I won’t lie that after…recent events I did think about it, but I googled international law and doesn’t sound like law degrees are transferable between countries.”</p>
<p>“Not generally, no.”</p>
<p>In-wook chewed on his lip, regarding Hee-jae carefully as something suddenly dawned on him. “There’s…” He cut himself off. “Perhaps it’s an odd time to bring this up after I’ve just scared you half to death…”</p>
<p>Hee-jae shook his head, threading their fingers together. “No, it’s fine, carry on.”</p>
<p>“But I ah…” In-wook stumbled a bit. “And this does pertain to the opportunity I got, I’m just realizing we should probably talk about this first before I tell you about that…”</p>
<p>The lawyer regarded him, entirely too amused at In-wook’s sudden flustered response. “I follow. Go ahead.”</p>
<p>In-wook chose his next words carefully. “I don’t know what your…perspective is on our relationship and I’m realizing that we should definitely talk about that…because I’m looking at this as a…long term sort of a thing moving forward.”</p>
<p>The smile that spread over Hee-jae’s face as he got up and walked around the table to pull the pianist into a hug. “You have <em>no idea</em> how relieved I am to hear you say that.”</p>
<p>In-wook buried his face in Hee-jae’s hair. “Oh, good. Good.” He pulled away and gave Hee-jae a quick peck on the lips. “So that out of the way…”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“This opportunity. It’s a competition held in Oslo I’m planning on attending. I was wondering if you wanted to come with me. With everything that’s been going on, I know I need a break from Korean society. I was thinking you might too.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae grinned. “You read my mind.” Then he cocked his head. “And how does our long term relationship factor into a vacation?”</p>
<p>
  <em>The laws are different in Norway. We could…</em>
</p>
<p>In-wook lost his nerve, suddenly second guessing himself. “I guess it doesn’t…” he murmured, looking away.</p>
<p>He didn’t have to see Hee-jae’s face to know he had not fooled him in the slightest.</p>
<p>So they planned the trip. Springtime in Norway was always one of In-wook’s favorite times of year (spring meant the snow would melt, and the nightmares would subside for a time). In-wook would perform in the competition, and then they would take two weeks to travel around Norway and other parts of Europe.</p>
<p>“We have to go to Paris,” Hee-jae said, chin propped on In-wook’s shoulder as the pianist browsed possible stops on his computer.</p>
<p>“We are not going to Paris, I hate it there,” In-wook said without much heat, snuggling back further into Hee-jae chest.</p>
<p>“But how can I give you a rose and kiss you in front of the Eiffel Tower like a proper hopeless romantic if we don’t go to Paris?”</p>
<p>The pianist hummed. “I think I’ve enabled your romantic streak a bit too much.”</p>
<p>“No such thing, you love it.”</p>
<p>In-wook closed his laptop and shifted so he could look up at Hee-jae. “I love <em>you.”</em></p>
<p>Hee-jae buried a smile in In-wook’s hair. “Speaking of romance, what should we do for our anniversary?”</p>
<p>“Anniversary? That’s not for another couple months.”</p>
<p>“Well, see—“ The lawyer shifted his arms around In-wook. “I still think our anniversary should be the day you moved in.”</p>
<p>“Oh, you mean the day I got divorced.”</p>
<p>“In-wook ah!”</p>
<p>The pianist chuckled as Hee-jae spluttered.</p>
<p>“All I’m saying is that we were technically together for that entire year before I kissed you. In all ways that matter for a long term relationship, we were together.”</p>
<p>“I agree with you there,” In-wook conceded, cheek resting on Hee-jae’s sweater (the pianist would never tire of teasing him for his...<em> creative</em> fashion sense). “But you must understand why I may not want to commemorate one of the worst days of my life.”</p>
<p>“True,” the lawyer murmured. “But it was also they day you walked out of something bad and into something good.”</p>
<p>“A fair point...a very fair point.”</p>
<p>In-wook caved and agreed to celebrate their anniversary on the day he moved in two years prior. It was a sweet affair. They had dinner and a drink or two at the neighborhood bar they had met in. The bartender greeted them both with a smile (the older man was slowly warming up to the idea that they were together, as were others in their lives, albeit slowly).</p>
<p>After so much shit had gone down in their lives maybe, just maybe, things were calming down.</p>
<p>(For once, In-wook did not jinx it.)</p>
<p>At home that night, Hee-jae pulled the clothes from their bodies and led them to the bed. In-wook ended up atop him, lounging between his spread thighs as they kissed languidly, indulgently. The pianist took a long time opening him up that night, working three fingers into him and brushing over his prostate until Hee-jae was begging him to hurry up.</p>
<p>Their was no urgency, no hurry to their lovemaking that night. In-wook’s movements were even and deep, Hee-jae’s thighs splayed out to either side as he threaded his fingers through the pianist’s hair, kissing him the entire time.</p>
<p>In-wook would never tire of this. Of him. Ever.</p>
<p>Wrapped up in each other’s arms in the early hours of the morning, blissfully sated after a second round in the shower, In-wook ran his fingers through the lawyer’s damp hair as the man dozed on his chest<em>.</em></p>
<p>This, this is what happiness was.</p>
<p>And he found himself…thinking of it again. Longing for it.</p>
<p>There was an argument to be made against marriage. Waking up each morning and choosing each other, nothing holding you together but the desire to stay together. In-wook understood it, was compelled by it (as one might be having had a marriage end as poorly as his did), but did not share the sentiment.</p>
<p>He had always been the kind of man who liked to make things official, liked to have things in writing, liked to show proof of his commitment to something.</p>
<p>And he was committed to Hee-jae for as long as the man would have him.</p>
<p><em>No need to rush, </em>he told himself, stroking a hand over the sleeping man’s face. <em>It’s not as if you could marry him here. And even if you could, you’re planning on spending the rest of your life with him. You have time. There will be other chances to go to Norway or anywhere else where the laws are different.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>You’ll have all the time you need.</em>
</p>
<p>********</p>
<p>“You’re going to do fine, In-wook ah. You always do fine.”</p>
<p>In-wook paced back and forth outside the concert hall. “I cannot stand the first chair trombonist, Hee-jae.”</p>
<p>“So?” the lawyer asked. “I can’t stand at least half the lawyers in Seoul. Use it to your advantage.”</p>
<p>“We’re not in court, Hee-jae.”</p>
<p>“No, but that doesn’t mean you can focus on your part and do well and shove it in his face.”</p>
<p>In-wook shrugged. Fair enough. Absentmindedly, he found him playing with the fourth finger on his left hand.</p>
<p>Hee-jae noticed too. “You always do that. When you’re nervous especially.”</p>
<p>In-wook looked down at his hands. “Ah,” he murmured. “Yes. A habit I picked up in the years I was married. I always spun my wedding ring on my finger.” He cracked a small smile. “Funny, I’ve been divorced for over two years and I still haven’t kicked the habit. I’ll have to get a ring for another finger maybe.”</p>
<p>“I could give you a ring.”</p>
<p>In-wook looked up to find Hee-jae gazing back at him, equally as surprised as In-wook was. Slowly, a bright red blush crept over his face.</p>
<p>“I...I meant...” The lawyer sighed. “No I didn’t. <em>Fuck...”</em></p>
<p>In-wook could do nothing but stare.</p>
<p>“You know,” Hee-jae murmured, shuffling his feet and staring at the ground, shaking his head. “I had it all planned out. I was going to take you out to dinner, then I was going to bring you to your favorite park, I even wrote a little speech...”</p>
<p>In-wook was tearing up.</p>
<p>“But here I go, blurting it out in an alley behind the concert hall...” He snorted, still not meeting In-wook’s eyes. “I know...I know we haven’t talked about it, but we talked about a long term relationship, and I know you might be apprehensive about getting married again, but I thought we’re going to Norway in the spring and we could get married there and...” He trailed off.</p>
<p>
  <em>He thought it too.</em>
</p>
<p>“Are you asking me to marry you?” In-wook breathed.</p>
<p>Hee-jae nodded, eyes still fixed on the ground.</p>
<p>In-wook reached forward and gently tipped his chin up with fingers along his jaw, leaning in to kiss him slowly, sweetly.</p>
<p>“Hee-jae ah,” he whispered. “This is what we’re gonna do. First, I’m going to kiss you again. Then I’m going to go blow the first chair trombonist out of the fucking hall, and we’re going to go home after this concert and have a long talk about what we envision our futures looking like. And if that goes well, then you can take me to dinner and to the park and read me that speech you wrote.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae’s eyes were misty too. “You don’t want to hear it, it’s really bad. So cheesy, hopelessly romantic…”</p>
<p>“I do. I really do.”</p>
<p>The lawyer laughed, his hands gently holding In-wook by the waist.</p>
<p>“Does that sound like a plan?”</p>
<p>The lawyer nodded, and In-wook leaned up to kiss him. Each time he did, it felt like that first time, that first kiss. Like coming home.</p>
<p>In-wook blew the roof off the concert hall with his bit, if he did say so himself. The rest of the orchestra did as well, somehow managing to all put aside their differences and play together.</p>
<p>The orchestra bowed to the standing ovation they received, but In-wook only saw Hee-jae, front and center as always, clapping wildly.</p>
<p>Their conversation went well that night. For two hours they sat in bed and talked about the future and what they wanted.</p>
<p>Everything lined up.</p>
<p>The next week, on a warm Tuesday night, In-wook got to hear that speech, and he was not ashamed to admit that he cried when Hee-jae (his best friend, his soulmate) asked him to marry him.</p>
<p>He said yes and did not have a single doubt in his mind.</p>
<p>********</p>
<p>It was an odd feeling, being back in Norway. He had not been back since he left with Jisoo to get married and live in Seoul. At least he could still speak Norwegian, if a bit rustily.</p>
<p>Hee-jae, jet-lagged as hell and his English suffering for it, stayed plastered to In-wook’s side for the entirety of the first day, making him do all the talking (which did not bother In-wook in the slightest, speaking English did not take any more brain power than Korean, though he did find it awfully cute).</p>
<p>The next day though.</p>
<p>“We should speak English while we’re here,” In-wook quipped as they ate breakfast at a cafe the following morning.</p>
<p>“No...” Hee-jae whined. “Korean.”</p>
<p>“You’ve been talking for months about how excited you were to improve your English.”</p>
<p>“Well, <em>yes...”</em> he conceded. “But between us, Korean.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” In-wook said in English. “It’ll be easier for you to get into the groove of it if we speak it too.”</p>
<p>“In-wook!”</p>
<p>“Or I could teach you Norwegian.”</p>
<p>“Korean!”</p>
<p>“Okay, okay,” he said, switching back and remembering making Jisoo speak English to him for the first two months they lived in Seoul, overwhelmed by the suddenly not-so-familiar language surrounding him. “You’re not embarrassed of your English, are you?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae did not reply, nibbling on his roll.</p>
<p>In-wook raised an eyebrow. “You have no reason to be.”</p>
<p>“My accent sounds so bad next to yours...”</p>
<p>“English was my primary language for a decent chunk of my life. Of course I have a native accent. And yours is fine.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae’s mouth twisted. “What if I make a mistake? Or if I don’t understand someone?”</p>
<p>In-wook smiled. “If you don’t understand, ask them to repeat it. As for mistakes, remember I told you about the time when I was in a taxi and I forgot how to say ‘take the third left’ so I just shouted ‘one, two, three, LEFT’ in a perfect Korean accent and the guy thought I was insane?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae smiled. “I think my favorite is still ‘chicken leaves’ instead of feathers.”</p>
<p>In-wook shook his head. “Yes, that was a low point. Jisoo couldn’t look at me without laughing for two days.” He looked on fondly as Hee-jae laughed. “Think of it like this. Were you at all bothered by those two Japanese girls who tried to ask you for directions in Korean last month?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae shook his head. “No, they were trying. They did good.”</p>
<p>“And there you go.”</p>
<p>The lawyer spun his coffee cup between his fingers, pondering.</p>
<p>“So,” In-wook said, clapping his hands together. “English!”</p>
<p>“In-wook!”</p>
<p>The pianist would never say it out loud because it would embarrass Hee-jae, but he loved the lawyer’s accent. It was adorable. He hoped the man never lost it.</p>
<p>********</p>
<p>In-wook had a surprise for Hee-jae.</p>
<p>The lawyer had expressed more than once how sweet it was when a musician would write a song for their partner, a soft hint no doubt. In-wook had certainly taken it as one, had been planning on writing one anyway, and was now seizing his chance.</p>
<p>He had somehow managed to keep it under wraps until this point, and as he walked out on stage in Oslo, eyes quickly scanning the crowd and settling on his fiancé, he could not wait to play it for him. Just before he walked out, he had texted the man.</p>
<p>
  <em>This is for you.</em>
</p>
<p>His fingers dancing over the keys, he realized with a jolt that he was not nervous as he normally was. This piece was perhaps one of the best he had ever written, as were all of the ones that came from his heart. He found himself smiling widely as he played it, partly wishing he could see Hee-jae’s face as he did, but there would be time for that later.</p>
<p>He had written this for him. He would play it for him as many times as he wanted to hear it.</p>
<p>Afterward, Hee-jae met him outside the concert hall.</p>
<p>“Did you like it?” In-wook asked as he approached.</p>
<p>Hee-jae did not reply, only pulled In-wook into an embrace and buried his face in the pianist’s hair.</p>
<p>“I love you so much,” Hee-jae whispered. “So, so much.”</p>
<p>In-wook hugged him back, carding his fingers through the man’s hair. “I love you too.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae pulled back, wiping a tear from his eye. “Yes, yes I liked it,” he said with a slightly embarrassed chuckle. “I loved it.”</p>
<p>“I’m glad.”</p>
<p>“In-wook ah,” Hee-jae said, catching the pianist’s hand and threading their fingers together. “Will you have time to get dinner later tonight?”</p>
<p>“Of course.”</p>
<p>“Good. There’s…a few things I wanted to say.”</p>
<p>It turned first into a small celebration. While he had not won, In-wook had still done exceedingly well.</p>
<p>“For my first international competition, I’m quite pleased. This will open up a lot of opportunities for me I hope,” he said over a glass of wine. “What did you want to talk to me about?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae chewed on his lip, spinning his wine glass between his fingers. “Before we get married I just…wanted to make sure you know how much I appreciate you. Sticking with me while I was getting over Geum-ja.” He laughed, just a little. “I feel so silly now. Thinking back on it, I was <em>miserable</em>, but I couldn’t see it and I have no idea why…”</p>
<p>“I feel the same way,” In-wook replied. “When I was married to my ex, I thought my relationship was perfect up until it wasn’t, but in reality there were a <em>lot</em> of problems through the whole thing that were just never addressed. Anymore I find myself wondering how we managed to stay together as long as we did. So you’re not alone in that sentiment.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae smiled. “Well, I know I tried your patience a lot with my refusal to acknowledge how bad that relationship was. And I’m so grateful now to be in a much better one.”</p>
<p>The Oslo air was brisk, but In-wook felt quite warm. “I’m grateful too.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae giggled like a schoolboy. “We’re getting married tomorrow.”</p>
<p>The pianist grinned. “We’re getting married tomorrow.”</p>
<p>It was a small affair. Just the two of them and a Norwegian judge for the actual ceremony. One of In-wook’s fondest memories would always be sitting beside Hee-jae in a Norwegian courthouse dressed to the nines, helping him fill out the marriage license and translating the Norwegian for him. In-wook had managed to make a few friends at the competition, and one of their wives happened to be a photographer. She agreed to take pictures, and In-wook’s new friends were happy to act as the witnesses both men had embarrassingly forgot about.</p>
<p>“This is truly a low point for me especially,” Hee-jae cackled, laying on their bed int he hotel room half dressed as In-wook called his friends, too happy to actually be embarrassed.</p>
<p>The rest of the day was spent touring around Oslo and the surround countryside. A simple day. A bit ironic for Hee-jae perhaps, In-wook mused, considering how every other aspect of the man’s life was so fancy, that one of the most important days of his life would not be.</p>
<p>“I did the whole white wedding thing,” In-wook said as they looked out over a pine forest on the outskirts of Oslo. “Spoiler alert, it didn’t work out.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae laughed. “Nothing wrong with a little simplicity sometimes.”</p>
<p>“Indeed. Nothing wrong with that at all.”</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>“Congratulations, In-wook shi!”</p>
<p>The pianist blushed, ducking his head with a wide grin as he stood at the entrance to the studio, Seo-woo standing in front of him holding a cupcake with a little candle on it.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” he said, giving her a quick hug.</p>
<p>“Both on your performance and on your marriage!” she elaborated, setting the cupcake down. “Tell me everything! The performance, the wedding, I heard you traveled around after.”</p>
<p>So he told her about their travels to the UK, France, Italy, and Greece aside from Norway.</p>
<p>“It was lovely, really lovely,” he said, remembering fondly.</p>
<p>“I’m so glad!” she said with that sweet smile of hers. “I want so badly to go to Italy one day.”</p>
<p>“You should, if you get the chance. I really like it there. Who knows, maybe there will be a competition there and I’ll be in need of a sound engineer.”</p>
<p>She giggled.</p>
<p>In-wook turned aside pulling out his phone as he felt it buzz, before immediately putting it back down.</p>
<p>“It’s okay, you can answer it!” Seo-woo said, nodding towards it.</p>
<p>In-wook shook his head. “I think not. It’s my mother. I doubt she has anything kind to say, so she can say it to my voicemail.”</p>
<p>The look on Seo-woo’s face was sad, and perhaps In-wook should have been sad too, but he was not. In reality, he was just disappointed. His mother was old fashioned, and had been terribly upset when he divorced Jisoo to begin with, decidedly unhappy with In-wook’s relationship with a man, and when she had heard he was planning on marrying said man...</p>
<p>Well, let’s just say In-wook had told her the news more out of courtesy than anything else, and had informed her that he was not asking for permission or a blessing. If she wanted to be in his life from that point forward, she would find a way to live with it. Filial piety be damned.</p>
<p>That was nothing compared to the backlash Hee-jae had faced.</p>
<p>Before they left for Norway, Hee-jae had given his coworkers In-wook’s number and said to call him if they needed to reach Hee-jae for anything, because Hee-jae would be leaving his phone in their apartment in Seoul.</p>
<p>After they had gotten back, he had waited a whole day before turning it on.</p>
<p>“I’m not going to see anything I want to see,” In-wook’s husband had said. “And I’m so happy right now. I don’t want to ruin it.”</p>
<p>He had asked to be alone when he finally did turn it on. In-wook waited downstairs while Hee-jae did it in their bedroom. When he came down, it had been with a resigned expression and faintly misty eyes.</p>
<p>“Are you okay?” In-wook had asked.</p>
<p>Hee-jae simply sighed. “I don’t think I have a family anymore” was all he said.</p>
<p>In-wook stood up and hugged him tightly. “Not true,” he replied. “You have me.”</p>
<p>His husband nodded into his shoulder, but In-wook still felt the tears soaking his collar.</p>
<p>It would appear that they would just have to make their own family. So that is what In-wook had set out to do. He cultivated his friendship with I-man and his boyfriend, as well as the one he had with Seo-woo. Hee-jae too reached out to his former best friend, Gi-hyeok, with whom he had fallen out after his untimely departure from Song&amp;Kim in an attempt to repair their friendship.</p>
<p>“How did it go?”</p>
<p>Hee-jae huffed and sat down at the table, spinning his wedding ring on his finger. “He apologized.”</p>
<p>In-wook nodded, drying the wine glass in his hands suspiciously. “That’s..good? What else?”</p>
<p>“He said <em>I</em> had some things to work on too if we were going to try to be friends. What did I do? <em>I</em> didn’t get him fired from his job!”</p>
<p>In-wook chewed on his cheek. The topic of his brief loss of employment and his relationship with his ex was still a bit touchy at times. “To be fair,” the pianist began cautiously. “Geum-ja got you fired. He just told the truth.”</p>
<p>Hee-jae made a noncommittal sound.</p>
<p>“And it’s also true that you were not always very kind to Gi-hyeok.”</p>
<p>The lawyer blinked. “How so?”</p>
<p>“I used to hear you talk to him on the phone, dear. You could be quite the asshole. Snapping at him, mocking him…”</p>
<p>Hee-jae sank down to rest his head on his folded arms on the table, staring off into middle distance. In-wook left him there to ponder for a bit while he finished up the dishes. When he returned a bit later, a cup of tea in hand for them both, his husband sighed heavily. “I…<em>suck</em>.”</p>
<p>In-wook chuckled.</p>
<p>“What do I do?”</p>
<p>“You apologize to him too, listen to what he has to say, and resolve to do better.”</p>
<p>“…I can do that.”</p>
<p>“You can absolutely do that, and you absolutely should do that.”</p>
<p>And there was…one other thing that had been on In-wook’s mind.</p>
<p>“You don’t have to,” Hee-jae had told him repeatedly. “You never have to speak to her again if you don’t want to.”</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>“Then why are you doing this?”</p>
<p>In-wook turned to his husband. “Because…I need to.”</p>
<p>Kim Jisoo looked much the same as when he had divorced her. That is, radiantly beautiful. She was staring up at the ceiling watching the shadows, as she always used to, and In-wook smiled, just for a moment.</p>
<p>Then he remembered exactly why it was they had not spoken in years, and the smile faded from his face. He sat down across from her.</p>
<p>“In-wook ah,” she said when she saw him.</p>
<p>“Jisoo,” he answered, nodding to her. “Let’s just get right to it. You’ve been wanting to see me?”</p>
<p>She nodded slowly, staring down at the top of the table. “Yes, I…I wanted…to apologize.”</p>
<p>In-wook was silent for a moment. “For?” When she hesitated, he prompted, “It rather takes the weight out of it if you won’t say what it is you’re apologizing for.”</p>
<p>She sighed heavily. “I wanted to apologize for how I acted when you told me what had happened in Norway. I always felt…horribly guilty about had happened, even before you told me you…saw her before she died. Because she was carrying our boots, mine and Ha won’s.”</p>
<p>That name still sent a chill down In-wook’s spine.</p>
<p>Jisoo’s eyes were misty. “Because I always thought…if we had just worn our boots to school that day like she told us to, she wouldn’t have been coming out after us, and she wouldn’t have died. And…and presented with an opportunity to alleviate that guilt…I took it. I blamed my guilt on you, my husband. I know you couldn’t speak Korean, it wasn’t your fault.”</p>
<p>In-wook had to shut his eyes and leaned his forehead on his hand. How long had he wished to hear her say that? It should not have felt as good as it did.</p>
<p>“If it was anyone’s fault, it was ours—“</p>
<p>In-wook cut her off. “It was no one’s fault. Not mine, yours, or hers. It was an accident. Trying to blame it on anyone or anything has already ruined large portions of at east three lives, I really think we need to stop here.”</p>
<p>Jisoo pressed her lips together. “So my…therapist keeps telling me.” She looked up at him. “The other thing I wanted to apologize for is cheating on you.”</p>
<p>In-wook gave no reply.</p>
<p>“You were always so good to me, so kind. I hurt you very badly by doing what I did. There were…so many things I should have been honest with you about. What I felt, what I was struggling with…and instead I blamed them on you. I regret it, and I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>It hurt, hearing confirmation that she had cheated on him, and being reminded of how miserable their 15 year relationship had actually been, but at the same time, it was like a weight had been lifted off him. That was what he had come here for, after all.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” he finally said. “For your apology.”</p>
<p>They spent the next half an hour chatting. In-wook told her about Hee-jae after she noticed his wedding ring, and about his career. In return, she told him about her upcoming move back to Norway.</p>
<p>“That’s why I wanted to see you,” she said. “Because at the very least I’ll be gone for a while. I’ve decided I need to work on my health, and healthcare is better there. Also for a change of scenery, a change of pace…”</p>
<p>“You never liked it here.”</p>
<p>When she met his eyes, she was smiling. “No. I didn’t.”</p>
<p>He hugged her before he left, and pressed a kiss to her forehead. When she blinked, a tear ran down her cheek.</p>
<p>“We never should have been married, In-wook ah…”</p>
<p>“No,” he agreed sadly. “We shouldn’t have. But the end of our relationship led me to my husband, so I can’t be too upset.”</p>
<p>She smiled at him. “Do you still have that keyboard?”</p>
<p>“Absolutely not.”</p>
<p>“In-wook—!”</p>
<p>“But I gave it to someone who could use it.”</p>
<p>She didn’t seem to mind that too much. “Take care, In-wook.”</p>
<p>“You too, Jisoo ah.”</p>
<p>All in all, it wasn’t the life In-wook would have expected he would be living had someone asked him five years ago where he would be. It was difficult at times, but never once did he find himself regretting his relationship with Hee-jae, nor his decision to marry him and spend the rest of his life with him. He was content. Secure. Happy.</p>
<p>*******</p>
<p>“What if I mess up?”</p>
<p>“95% of people in the audience will have no idea.”</p>
<p>“But <em>I’ll</em> know.”</p>
<p>“Then you’ll learn from it and you won’t make the same mistake again next time you play it.”</p>
<p>In-wook sighed, brushing aside Hee-jae’s hands at his tie and resting his forehead in the center of his husband’s chest. “What if I lose my mind?”</p>
<p>The lawyer chuckled. “You’re not really concerned about that, are you? Besides, I think you already kind of did.”</p>
<p>Fair enough. Indeed, he had scared the shit out of Hee-jae just a little bit when he had finally, for the first time in two years of practicing, successfully played Rach 3 in its entirety and promptly gotten up from his piano and run around the apartment <em>screaming</em> “Yes! Yes!”</p>
<p>Yes, the calm, collected, and reserved Kang In-wook had in fact done that.</p>
<p>“You can do this, In-wook ah. I believe in you.”</p>
<p>The pianist nodded, taking a deep breath. His husband left him with a quick kiss.</p>
<p>It was funny, he thought, making his way out on stage and spinning his wedding ring on his finger to calm him down. He had always dreamed of being here. He had always thought it would be Jisoo’s ring on his finger, Jisoo he was looking for in the crowd.</p>
<p>His eyes landed on Hee-jae, and he breathed a sigh of relief at seeing him.</p>
<p>It was better this way.</p>
<p>When Kang In-wook put himself among the ranks of musicians capable of playing Rach 3, his husband was in the audience to see it.</p>
<p>“I did it!” he said afterward, wrapped up in his husband’s arms, a smile nearly splitting his face in two. “I actually did it!”</p>
<p>“You did.”</p>
<p>For once, when In-wook kissed him, he did not give a single shit who saw.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <strong>El Fin</strong>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And there you have it folks! I never thought I would write a crossover, especially not one as long as this, but here we are. This has definitely been almost a refuge for me in quarantine and through the long illness I've been battling, as I'm rather prevented from seeing people because of my illness and the pandemic, I decided to live out my hopeless romantic dreams through these two. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Let me know what you think! &lt;333</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This got so long didn't it :3 I really dragged that out. I hope you've enjoyed reading it so far as much as I've enjoyed writing it! Let me know what you think! Epilogue will be up soon</p></blockquote></div></div>
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